The Harvest — A Story from the Irish Countryside

Dawn had scarcely broken when the reapers had gathered in the barley field — the great oblong field owned by James McDara, the retired engineer. The field began on the slope of a knoll and descended slowly to the sand-covered road that ran along the sea. It was bounded by a low stone wall, and the yellow ears of barley leaned over the wall and ringed it round in dense clusters that waved and jostled whenever the morning breeze passed over them, filling the air with its rustling.

As for McDara himself — an elderly, white-haired man wearing a coarse-woven gray woolen suit — he stood outside the wall on the sea road, waving his stick and talking to the few people who had gathered at that early hour. His deeply flushed face was alight with excitement, and he brandished his blackthorn stick as he talked in a loud voice to the men around him. He was saying:

"I measured it and divided it myself yesterday, as fairly as division can be. I swear on my honor there isn't a single span's difference between the three strips. Do you see? I laid ropes down the length of the field so they can't go wrong. Come and I'll show you."

And he led the men from one end of the field to the other and showed them how he had divided the field into three strips and had marked the strips with ropes laid along the ground.

Then the old man cried out, excited as a schoolboy: "Yes, by my faith, this is the fairest division there can be. When I fire my pistol they start together, and the two who finish their strip before the others win five pounds."

The peasants bowed their heads in approval and looked at old McDara with new eyes, though each of them believed in his heart of hearts that he was a fool to spend five pounds on the reaping of a field that could be reaped for two. Yet for all that they were hardly less excited than McDara himself, for the three men who were the best reapers in the whole island of Inverara had come forward for the contest. They were now at the head of the field, above on the slope of the hill, ready to begin. With each man was his wife, to bind the sheaves after they were cut and to bring food and drink.

They had drawn lots for the strips by pulling three blades of sea-grass from McDara's hat. Then they took their places on their strips, awaiting the signal to begin. Although the sun had not yet warmed the earth and the sea breeze was still cold, each man had stripped to his shirt; the shirts were open at the neck and the sleeves rolled above the elbow. They wore gray woolen shirts, and each was girded with a belt woven of pure wool in many colors; below this they wore trousers of coarse white wool, their ends stuffed into long woolen stockings embroidered at the top. Their feet were graced with shoes of untanned hide, and not one of them wore anything on his head. As for their wives, each wore a red bodice and had bound her head with a little shawl.

On the left were Michael Gill and his wife Susan. Michael was a tall, wiry man with fair hair that hung over his forehead, while the hair around the skull was shaved completely away. His nose was aquiline, and his lean jaws never ceased moving backward and forward; he had fixed his small blue eyes on the ground, so that his long white lashes almost touched his temples, as though he had drifted off to sleep. Michael stood rigid and unmoving, holding the reaping-hook in his right hand and thrusting his left into his belt. Now and again he would lift his lashes, listening for the signal to begin. His wife was nearly his equal in height, but she was full of figure and rosy-skinned. She was a silent woman, and she stood there thinking of her eight-month-old son, whom she had left at home in her mother's care.

In the middle stood Johnny Bodkin, arms folded and legs apart, talking to his wife in a low voice full of earnestness. He was a huge man, fat of arm and leg and neck, with black hair gone bald above his forehead. His forehead was pure white and his cheeks deep red, and his face wore an everlasting scowl; he would knit his black brows fiercely and suddenly. His wife Mary was short, thin, and pale of face, her upper teeth protruding a little over her lower lip.

On the right were Pat Considine and his wife Kate. Kate was big of body and hard of muscle, with a freckled face and a very visible mustache on her upper lip. Her hair was thick, matted, curly, and dun-colored, forever coming loose and tumbling down. She talked to her husband in a loud, harsh voice like a man's, full of jest and banter. As for her husband, he was a small, thin man whose face had begun to be covered with wrinkles though he had not yet reached forty. His face had once been very red, but now pallor was creeping over it, and he had lost most of his front teeth. He stood slackly, looking at McDara, his

lips parted in a smile, his small, loose-limbed, thin body concealing its strength.

Then McDara waved his stick and raised his arm; a shot rang out, and the reaping race began. In a single movement the three men sank onto their right knees like soldiers at a military review about to fire. In the same movement their left hands wound about a bunch of barley stalks, the curved hooks whirled swiftly in the air, and there followed a crunching sound, like the sound hungry cows make as they eat the long fresh grass in spring. And behold, three small slender sheaves of barley stalks fell on the dewy grass below the wall, each sheaf behind the reaper's bent left leg. The three women stood watching for the first sheaf in a silence charged with excitement, for it would be a tiding of victory or an omen of defeat.

One sheaf, two, three, four...

Johnny Bodkin was snorting like an excited horse, his sheaves falling one after another with scarcely a pause between them. With a loud, joyous cry he raised his hook in the air, spat on it, and shouted: "The first sheaf!" His wife pounced on it with both hands, separated a small handful of stalks, wound it round the head of the sheaf, and tied it with an astonishing, marvelous speed, her long thin fingers moving like knitting needles. The other two reapers and their wives did not stop to look. Each of the three reapers had cut his first sheaf, and each man's wife was kneeling, binding it.

Bodkin went on working with the same ardor and frenzy with which he had begun, and before long he drew ahead of his rivals. He cut his swaths without order or method, leaving uncut patches behind him, for his strokes were not regular; but his speed and strength were truly astonishing. His huge hands swung the hook and wound about the stalks with a heaviness devoid of grace, and his body hurled itself forward, colliding with everything, like the carcass of an elephant hurrying through a forest; yet the continual movement of his joints had a rhythm not without beauty. His wife followed him, binding, binding swiftly, her rigid face contracted in a sharp frown, like one pondering some grave matter.

After them came Considine and his wife. And now, as Considine threw himself upon the work, he showed a wondrous strength and nimbleness, like a mountain goat. When his long, lean, bony arms moved to strike the barley, the muscles stood taut on his bent back like a tangled net of coiled springs compressed. Every time he hopped forward on his right knee to advance along his line of reaping, a gasp broke from him like a stifled grunt. As for his wife, the sweat poured from her in streams, and she followed him so closely she almost touched his heels, never ceasing to urge him on, laughing and jesting in her accustomed loud voice full of ardor.

As for Michael Gill and his wife, they came last. Gill had begun to reap with slow, regular movements, like the motions of a machine driven at low pressure. He kept exactly the same pace, neither changing his speed nor lifting his head to see where his two rivals were. His long, lean hands moved without noise, and nothing was heard but the sharp crunching sound of his hook's teeth in the yellow barley stalks. His long, lowered lashes were always turned toward the spot where his hook was cutting. Not once did he look back to see whether he had cut enough for a sheaf before beginning another; all his movements were arranged beforehand — calm, monotonous, controlled with a frightening precision. Even his breathing was regular, coming from his

nose like a man's in peaceful sleep. His wife moved behind him in the same fashion, binding each sheaf gently, deftly, and without strain.

When the day's sun rose high, people gathered from every quarter to watch the reapers. The sun climbed the vault of the sky and the heat grew fierce; the wind fell still, and the barley stalks grew quiet, no movement left in them, standing erect in utter calm with their whitening heads and golden stems. A great scattered gap had opened in the barley and was widening still. The bare patch was covered with a little green clover that had been sown with the barley, and it was dotted with the sheaves, which the blazing sun was turning white. Through the clamor of the arguing people ran the regular crunching sound of the reaping-hooks.

Before noon Bodkin had reaped half his strip. A stone had been set in the middle of the dividing line, and when Bodkin reached it he lifted it in his hand, stood upright, and shouted: "Here is the proof that never was a man born on the island of Inverara with the skill of Johnny Bodkin." The crowd gathered on the wall answered him with cheers, but big-bodied Kate Considine waved a boot over her head in glee and shouted in her harsh, mannish voice: "The day is still young, Bodkin, you man of soft flesh!" The crowd burst into roars of laughter, and Bodkin seethed with rage but made no answer, for he was not quick of wit. As for Gill and his wife, they paid her no heed and never lifted their eyes from the reaping.

Bodkin's wife was the first to go and fetch the midday meal. She came with a can full of cold tea and a whole cake of white flour baked in the oven and cut into large pieces, each piece drenched in butter. She had with her also four eggs boiled until they had turned to stone.

Bodkin and his wife had no children, and so they could live a life of ease — at any rate a life far better than that of the other peasants. Bodkin flung down his hook and devoured three of the eggs greedily, while his wife — no less hungry than he — devoured the fourth. Then Bodkin set about eating the bread and butter and drinking the cold tea with a speed no less than the speed with which he had reaped the barley. It took him and his wife exactly two minutes and three-quarters to finish off all that great quantity of food and drink. Gallagher, the doctor, timed them as he stood on the coast road, seized as he was with intense curiosity. And no sooner had they finished their food than they resumed work with the same violence and frenzy.

Considine had come level with Bodkin at the very moment Bodkin resumed work; and instead of resting to take the meal, he and his wife ate according to the old custom handed down among the peasants of Inverara in contests of this kind. Kate fed her husband a cake of oatmeal spread with butter, and from time to time she handed him the can of tea, and he would pause to swallow a draught. Thus he was still nearly level with Bodkin when he finished his meal. The excitement of the onlookers grew when they saw such resolve in Considine, and some began to say he would win the race.

But no one paid any attention to Gill and his wife; yet they did not stop to eat, and they were drawing ever nearer to their rivals. They were still some distance behind, but they seemed to be keeping their strength and vigor, while weariness had begun to show on Bodkin, his heavy meal having shackled his vigor, and while it grew plain that Considine had begun to empty his quiver of its hoarded strength. When they reached the stone at the halfway mark, Gill quietly laid down his hook and told his wife to bring the food. She fetched it from the wall: a cake of oatmeal spread with butter and a bottle of fresh milk with a measure of oatmeal in the bottom of it. They ate unhurriedly, then rested a while. People began to jeer at them when they saw them resting, but the two paid them no heed. After nearly twenty minutes they rose to resume work. A shout of mockery and derision went up, and a decrepit old man cried: "You are a disgrace to my name, Michael." Michael answered: "Calm yourself, father; the race is not over yet." Then he spat on his palms and gripped his hook once more.

Then indeed, truth be told, agitation and excitement reached their height, for Gill and his wife resumed work at great speed. Their movements were still as mechanical and regular as before, but they had doubled their speed, or nearly so. People began to shout at them, and the notables began to lay wagers. Feeling had not run so high before, since it had been taken for granted that Bodkin would win, he having drawn so far ahead. But now there appeared what threatened Bodkin's supremacy. True, he was still a long stretch ahead of Gill, but it became plain that fatigue had settled upon him; his hook began to miss stroke after stroke, and its head kept catching in the ground. The sweat was pouring from Bodkin, and he began to look behind him at Gill, furious at the shouting of the people.

Shortly before four o'clock Considine's strength gave out and he fell to the ground utterly spent, so that they had to carry him to the wall. A crowd gathered around him, and the clergyman, Mr. Robertson, gave him a draught of brandy from

his flask, which brought back his senses. He tried to return to the work but could not rise. His wife said angrily: "Stay here — you are done for. I will carry on the work myself."

But everyone fixed their attention on the struggle between Bodkin and Gill. Bodkin, spurred on by fierce anger, put forth a prodigious effort and began to pull ahead once more. His huge, massive body swayed from left to right and back again along his line of reaping, so that he seemed to be snatching up the long yellow barley stalks, so fast did they fall before him. Whenever a sheaf was complete, his thin wife seized it and bound it. Yet for all that, when Bodkin paused at five o'clock to cast a glance behind him, there was Gill advancing with a terrifying regularity. And suddenly Bodkin felt the whole day's exhaustion overpowering him.

That exhaustion took first the form of a consuming thirst. He sent his wife to the wall to fetch the spare can of tea, and when she came back with it he began to drink. But the more he drank, the greater grew his thirst. His friends among the crowd of onlookers shouted warnings to him, but thirst had robbed him of his reason, and he went on drinking. The shore wall — and victory — were now very near. He kept staring at the wall in a daze as he swung his hook... and kept on drinking... Then his senses began to grow dim... drowsiness weighed down his eyelids, and his movements came almost without consciousness. He saw nothing but the wall, and he struggled onward... and began to talk to himself... He reached the wall at one end of his strip. Nothing remained but to reap across to the other end and be done... Three more swaths, and then... the best man in Inverara... five pounds...

But at that moment a mighty cheer thundered in his ears, and a shout filled the wide spaces of the air: "Gill has won!" And Bodkin threw himself upon the ground, groaning.

From al-Adab wa-l-Fann