Rustic Prints 6 (Last Installment in This Series)

What is not to love about this rustic print? It glows within the mat as if filled with its own light. The blue sky and white clouds are true to a summer’s day. A pleasant cottage with a white fence is barely discernible beneath the branches of the welcoming tree. A man walks a large fluffy dog by the trunk. Farmers load bundles of wheat, also known as sheaves, onto a wagon pulled by three horses. A rooster and a chicken, like Geoffrey Chaucer’s Chanticleer and Pertelote (in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”), wait happily, knowing they will find grains of wheat when the nearby shock is knocked apart.

Framed Rustic Print of Horses, Wheat, and Chickens

When I exhibited my farm steam engine at the Will County Threshermen’s Association show in Illinois in the 1990s, I enjoyed loading bundles of wheat in the late afternoon. Tired from the hard work of a hot day, I somehow managed to find a burst of energy when fellow exhibitors and I walked the short distance to the field. With a pitchfork, my friends and I lifted the bundles higher and higher until the wagons were stacked to the sky with sheaves of golden wheat. We could nearly always count on the sunset to be spectacular, with reddish orange rays slanting between the bundle wagons. Don’t get me wrong! It was a workout, and my muscles screamed afterwards. The joy was in doing honest and collaborative work as it had been done in my grandparents’ and parents’ days. The banter was ever friendly; the camaraderie, always memorable.

In helping to load bundles in Will County, I learned that a shock must be broken apart before the bundles can be lifted. Shocks of wheat are carefully piled groups of bundles, with at least one fanned out across the top to help shed the rain. For most of the time that wheat was threshed—that is, before wheat was harvested by means of the agricultural implement called a “combine”—standard wisdom held that wheat should “cure” in shocks or stacks for a few weeks before being threshed. Should it rain during the curing process, much of the rain would be shunted aside by the bundles carefully spread across the tops of the shocks.

After being propped together for many days, the wheat bundles are commingled enough to make lifting one of them a challenge. By the simple expedient of easy movements with a pitchfork, the shock is loosened in such a way that the bundles become disentangled, ready for loading. In this rustic print, the man wearing suspenders is standing over a shock that has been knocked apart. His actions remind me of those jubilant evenings in Will County!

I began this series by admitting that I am a sucker for old-time illustrations that can be described as “rustic prints.” With a farming scene as spectacular as this one, I am confident that my passion for such prints can be understood by everyone.

Rustic Prints 4

To the back of this rustic print my father, Joseph Rhode, taped a quotation he typed on a slip of paper and illustrated with colored pencils: “I tell you that the great cities rest upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.” The words are those of William Jennings Bryan, a populist who lost his bids for President of the United States three times. My generation remembers Bryan as a character in the movie (and play) Inherit the Wind (1960). The quotation that my father chose as a caption for the rural scene is from Bryan’s famous “Cross of Gold” speech.

Farm Horses and Wagon in Green Frame

The print depicts a team of horses pulling a wagon along a road beside a river in spectacular scenery reminiscent of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The young couple in front of the house and stone wall includes the man wearing the straw hat while driving the team and the woman feeding the chickens while drying the laundry. The trees are as fluffy as the clouds of the prismatic day. A lilac bush is in full bloom. The illustration exudes peace, contentment, and love.

My father “Joe” loved farming with horses, all of them spoiled pets. When he was a boy, he happily harnessed Togo and Maud on his grandfather’s farm. Later, when he had a farm of his own, my father proudly drove Queen and Babe. Shire horses assisted many of his farming tasks until about the time my brother was born. At that time, he felt that he must modernize by using gasoline tractors exclusively, and he reluctantly sold his last horses. It must have broken his heart to do so.

Togo, Maud, and Joseph C. Rhode in April 1930

Photo by Mrs. Allen

When my father passed away at a ripe old age, I discovered in his desk drawers numerous pamphlets, brochures, and books on horses. Joe grew up with the family tradition of Dan Patch, arguably the first sports celebrity in the U.S. (His mother’s uncle invented a shoe that helped the young sulky horse become a champion and go on to fame and fortune.) I have the impression that my father liked horses even more than he liked dogs, and he always had a loving dog around!

Queen, Babe, and Joseph C. Rhode in March 1942

Whenever I look upon this rustic print, I think of my father and of my upbringing on his farm. It was in the flat lands of Indiana, not the mountains, but the farm held charms that I distinctly remember to this day. Often, I return to the farm in my dreams.