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Authors: Flora Thompson
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the clue to the fields' history. Near
the farmhouse, 'Moat Piece', 'Fishponds', 'Duffus [i.e. dovehouse] piece', 'Kennels',
and 'Warren Piece' spoke of a time before the Tudor house took the place of
another and older establishment. Farther on, 'Lark Hill', 'Cuckoos' Clump',
'The Osiers', and 'Pond Piece' were named after natural features, while
'Gibbard's Piece' and 'Blackwell's' probably commemorated otherwise
long-forgotten former occupants. The large new fields round the hamlet had been
cut too late to be named and were known as 'The Hundred Acres', 'The Sixty
Acres', and so on according to their acreage. One or two of the ancients
persisted in calling one of these 'The Heath' and another 'The Racecourse'.
One name was as good as another to most of the men; to them
it was just a name and meant nothing. What mattered to them about the field in
which they happened to be working was whether the road was good or bad which led
from the farm to it; or if it was comparatively sheltered or one of those bleak
open places which the wind hurtled through, driving the rain through the
clothes to the very pores; and was the soil easily workable or of back-breaking
heaviness or so bound together with that 'hemmed' twitch that a ploughshare
could scarcely get through it.
There were usually three or four ploughs to a field, each of
them drawn by a team of three horses, with a boy at the head of the leader and
the ploughman behind at the shafts. All day, up and down they would go, ribbing
the pale stubble with stripes of dark furrows, which, as the day advanced,
would get wider and nearer together, until, at length, the whole field lay a
rich velvety plum-colour.
Each plough had its following of rooks, searching the clods
with side-long glances for worms and grubs. Little hedgerow birds flitted hither
and thither, intent upon getting their tiny share of whatever was going. Sheep,
penned in a neighbouring field, bleated complainingly; and above the ma-a-ing
and cawing and twittering rose the immemorial cries of the land-worker: 'Wert
up!' 'Who-o-o-a!' 'Go it, Poppet!' 'Go it, Lightfoot!' 'Boo-oy, be you deaf, or
be you hard of hearin', dang ye!'
After the plough had done its part, the horse-drawn roller
was used to break down the clods; then the harrow to comb out and leave in neat
piles the weeds and the twitch grass which infested those fields, to be fired
later and fill the air with the light blue haze and the scent that can haunt
for a lifetime. Then seed was sown, crops were thinned out and hoed and, in
time, mown, and the whole process began again.
Machinery was just coming into use on the land. Every autumn
appeared a pair of large traction engines, which, posted one on each side of a field,
drew a plough across and across by means of a cable. These toured the district
under their own steam for hire on the different farms, and the outfit included
a small caravan, known as 'the box', for the two drivers to live and sleep in.
In the 'nineties, when they had decided to emigrate and wanted to learn all
that was possible about farming, both Laura's brothers, in turn, did a spell
with the steam plough, horrifying the other hamlet people, who looked upon such
nomads as social outcasts. Their ideas had not then been extended to include mechanics
as a class apart and they were lumped as inferiors with sweeps and tinkers and others
whose work made their faces and clothes black. On the other hand, clerks and
salesmen of every grade, whose clean smartness might have been expected to
ensure respect, were looked down upon as 'counter-jumpers'. Their recognized
world was made up of landowners, farmers, publicans, and farm labourers, with
the butcher, the baker, the miller, and the grocer as subsidiaries.
Such machinery as the farmer owned was horse-drawn and was
only in partial use. In some fields a horse-drawn drill would sow the seed in rows,
in others a human sower would walk up and down with a basket suspended from his
neck and fling the
the farmhouse, 'Moat Piece', 'Fishponds', 'Duffus [i.e. dovehouse] piece', 'Kennels',
and 'Warren Piece' spoke of a time before the Tudor house took the place of
another and older establishment. Farther on, 'Lark Hill', 'Cuckoos' Clump',
'The Osiers', and 'Pond Piece' were named after natural features, while
'Gibbard's Piece' and 'Blackwell's' probably commemorated otherwise
long-forgotten former occupants. The large new fields round the hamlet had been
cut too late to be named and were known as 'The Hundred Acres', 'The Sixty
Acres', and so on according to their acreage. One or two of the ancients
persisted in calling one of these 'The Heath' and another 'The Racecourse'.
One name was as good as another to most of the men; to them
it was just a name and meant nothing. What mattered to them about the field in
which they happened to be working was whether the road was good or bad which led
from the farm to it; or if it was comparatively sheltered or one of those bleak
open places which the wind hurtled through, driving the rain through the
clothes to the very pores; and was the soil easily workable or of back-breaking
heaviness or so bound together with that 'hemmed' twitch that a ploughshare
could scarcely get through it.
There were usually three or four ploughs to a field, each of
them drawn by a team of three horses, with a boy at the head of the leader and
the ploughman behind at the shafts. All day, up and down they would go, ribbing
the pale stubble with stripes of dark furrows, which, as the day advanced,
would get wider and nearer together, until, at length, the whole field lay a
rich velvety plum-colour.
Each plough had its following of rooks, searching the clods
with side-long glances for worms and grubs. Little hedgerow birds flitted hither
and thither, intent upon getting their tiny share of whatever was going. Sheep,
penned in a neighbouring field, bleated complainingly; and above the ma-a-ing
and cawing and twittering rose the immemorial cries of the land-worker: 'Wert
up!' 'Who-o-o-a!' 'Go it, Poppet!' 'Go it, Lightfoot!' 'Boo-oy, be you deaf, or
be you hard of hearin', dang ye!'
After the plough had done its part, the horse-drawn roller
was used to break down the clods; then the harrow to comb out and leave in neat
piles the weeds and the twitch grass which infested those fields, to be fired
later and fill the air with the light blue haze and the scent that can haunt
for a lifetime. Then seed was sown, crops were thinned out and hoed and, in
time, mown, and the whole process began again.
Machinery was just coming into use on the land. Every autumn
appeared a pair of large traction engines, which, posted one on each side of a field,
drew a plough across and across by means of a cable. These toured the district
under their own steam for hire on the different farms, and the outfit included
a small caravan, known as 'the box', for the two drivers to live and sleep in.
In the 'nineties, when they had decided to emigrate and wanted to learn all
that was possible about farming, both Laura's brothers, in turn, did a spell
with the steam plough, horrifying the other hamlet people, who looked upon such
nomads as social outcasts. Their ideas had not then been extended to include mechanics
as a class apart and they were lumped as inferiors with sweeps and tinkers and others
whose work made their faces and clothes black. On the other hand, clerks and
salesmen of every grade, whose clean smartness might have been expected to
ensure respect, were looked down upon as 'counter-jumpers'. Their recognized
world was made up of landowners, farmers, publicans, and farm labourers, with
the butcher, the baker, the miller, and the grocer as subsidiaries.
Such machinery as the farmer owned was horse-drawn and was
only in partial use. In some fields a horse-drawn drill would sow the seed in rows,
in others a human sower would walk up and down with a basket suspended from his
neck and fling the
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