Autumn on the Plains, part 2
Praying, not only in autumn but also in spring, summer, and winter, was another chore the homesteader did a considerable amount of. And if you were lucky that praying helped produced a bountiful harvest and then you had the pleasure of raising your voice in numerous thanks. These were usually thanks that not too many grasshoppers had descended on your fields and garden and that, for once, hailstones the size of a baby's fist, or larger, hadn't come along and flattened your corn just as it was about "knee-high to a grasshopper."
Praying and thanking must have taken up a goodly piece of time for the homesteader but was well worth the effort. You prayed that the well-witch you'd hired to locate water for a well was on his mark. In my family's case the local well witch was my own grandfather and he was really good at it. Then they prayed that the well digger, or your self, would find that water not too many feet down, then you prayed that that well wouldn't run dry. But in case the well did run dry in the long heat of summer, you also prayed that the bubbling stream that ran a good back-breaking, water-hauling mile or so from your house did not dry up.
The homesteader also prayed that this years' baby and its mother would come through the birthing just fine and that this baby wouldn't be frail and die, after all that work, like three others had done before it. But then you gave thanks for the fine crop of four other youngsters, born in as many years, that were thriving and doing their best to help out. Even the three-year-old had its chores, usually something like filling a bushel basket full of dried corn cobs to be burned in the fireplace or cook stove. I speak of this chore because like the old fellow said, "I've been there and done that" and it isn't much fun.
Actually, collecting corncobs for burning was a pretty important chore for homesteader kids. There were not many trees on the plains and what few were there were needed for shade from the blistering summer suns or to provide cross beams and such for soddy buildings. So what did the homesteader burn for heat and cooking? Cow or buffalo chips. You took a wheelbarrow or a good size bag, like a cotton-picking bag, and went for a stroll across the prairie, collecting these dried platter-sized gems of the plains. In the fall it was necessary to collect huge piles of them because after the snows covered the plains you just were not going to be able to find them.
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