Reidy’s Harvest

The sermon for that Sunday took the Gospel account of the rich landowner who had built extra barns to accommodate his bumper harvest. The punch line, delivered with great gusto by Father McGuire, left Reidy with a mixture of guilt and apprehension. Wasn’t it himself who had a bumper oat crop and who had pegged out the site for his second haystack that very morning before Mass? And did he not have more than enough in the first stack to cover his needs? Then, there was the matter of the mouse plague. Micky Skehill avowed that the rodents were on the march and that farms not forty miles away had been completely eaten out. A vague notion of some biblical plague had settled in Reidy’s mind and he was half convinced that the Gospel parable, which he had unaccountably confounded with certain other themes from the Bible, was about to take on a more modern form. He might even be called to his Maker before the stack was built, just as in the Gospel account.

On the way home, he communicated some of these concerns to his wife Mary but she, being a shrewd and practical woman, reminded him of the Parable of the Talents and of his duty to accept his bumper crop as a manifestation of God’s Providence. By the time they arrived home, Reidy was in a much better frame of mind.

The new stack was started the very next day. Reidy employed old Wharton as the builder while his own two sons carted in the sheaves with the wagon, pulled by Hercules and Captain, and forked them up onto the stack. Wharton crawled round the stack on his hands and knees, placing each sheaf carefully. Each time a sheaf landed beyond his immediate reach he swore at the two boys and delivered advice regarding the proper way to throw a sheaf. Wharton also considered himself an expert on the matter of pitchforks and repeated his opinion to the point of monotony that Australian-made pitchforks were next to useless. “They can’t get the right temper in the steel and the set is all wrong. Get yourselves some decent American forks with good hickory handles,” he said. “A good fork will work with you, not against you.”

By the time the stack was ready for thatching it was the talk of the district. Even a few people from the town came out to view it. It was perfectly proportioned and built to last. So tightly had Wharton packed the sheaves with their stub ends out that not even the smallest mouse could gain entry. A stack like that would shed water from the heaviest storm and the sheaves would retain their quality for years. In the course of a few weeks, the whole business of human frailty and the vanity of human wishes had completely left Reidy’s mind.

But that all changed the day that William Crewther drove up the dusty track to the homestead in his gig. Crewther was the local insurance agent and, of late, his company had decided to branch out into farm insurance. “It’s a case of risk management,” said Crewther, spouting the latest jargon from his trade. He walked over to the new haystack. “Take this haystack for instance. You could lose the lot in a week if the mouse plague comes down much further.” Warming to his theme, Crewther then began to enumerate a great range of natural disasters—fire, floods, field crickets, locusts, and even cockatoos. Examples were given of neighbours who had suffered from just such events. Ryan, for instance, was eaten out by rabbits which had descended on his property from places north. The final straw was the “Destruction Notice” from the Rabbit Inspector. Ryan, it was said, went to an early grave as a result. And, of course, everyone knew of the disaster at the Hogan farm when a huge flock of “the divil’s canaries” (as Hogan called them) had completely wiped out his newly sown paddock.

Given this huge array of actual and possible disasters, it was imperative that Reidy take action to secure the future of his farm. Again, with such a plethora of impending disasters it was more than likely that oaten chaff would be in short supply next year, fetching huge prices. Reidy was sitting on a potential gold mine. He ought to value the stack accordingly.

Crewther’s sales pitch finally ended when Mary arrived on the scene with a tray of scones and two cups of tea. Crewther squatted down in a most unprofessional manner to drink his tea and light up his pipe. He waited for Reidy’s response. Father McGuire’s sermon suddenly came back to Reidy but from a new and wholly satisfactory angle. He could now see a way to bring some certainty to the future. The stack might, indeed, be lost, but he would not be wholly at the mercy of any great natural disaster. It was not actually an attempt to outsmart God but more a case of being diligent like the man with the Talents. When Crewther produced the papers from his flash leather attaché case, Reidy signed up without hesitation. A jubilant Crewther shook him by the hand, cleaned out his pipe and stoked up with another plug of tobacco. He drove off a happy man, congratulating himself on his powers of persuasion and his ability as a salesman. There was a tidy little commission which would come his way once Reidy’s cheque was cleared.

At the bottom of the hill, some instinct caused Crewther to turn and look back to the Reidy farm. A plume of dense smoke rose into the sky. He turned the horse and drove back at full speed. By the time he reached the homestead the haystack was well and truly on fire. A light northerly fanned the eager flames and Reidy’s hopelessly inadequate Furphy water cart had no demonstrable effect on the course of the fire. Within half an hour it was clear that the stack was lost. It would burn for another day or so and no amount of water from Reidy’s hoses would quench the deep-seated fire.

There was no disputing the cause. A trail of ash and blackened straw led from precisely the spot where Crewther had tapped out the ash from his pipe by striking the pipe on the heel of his boot. A grim-faced Crewther shuffled through the contents of his case and finally located a claim form. For the second time that day, Reidy signed at the designated place and handed back the elegant fountain pen to Crewther.

That evening, the Reidys sat down to the table with grave expressions. Mary had been crying. The two boys arrived home from their weekly trip into town for market day. They handed Reidy the newspaper. No one spoke and the only sound was that of rustling paper as he turned the pages.

Suddenly, his countenance changed and a trace of a smile appeared. “Listen to this,” he said, holding the paper closer to the Tilley lamp: “A Department of Agriculture spokesman confirmed that, as a result of good rains during the growing season, the supply of oaten hay this year would far outstrip demand, leading to extremely low prices for chaff.” Reidy reached for the pencil on the mantelpiece and began to scribble figures on the newspaper. When the calculations were complete, his smile broadened. “Isn’t God’s Providence a wonderful thing,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Mary. “And wasn’t it Crewther who failed to heed the Lord’s lesson regarding the laying up of treasures and was now reaping the consequences?”

“That’s surely true,” said Reidy as he cut himself an extra large piece of ham. He was feeling exceptionally prosperous. “I think I might insure the sheep—and Hercules and old Captain,” he added, by way of an afterthought. “And we’ll get some of those American pitchforks, just to save old Wharton from the fires of hell with all his cursing.”