Yesterday when the boys came in with very
earthy faces, and I questioned them, I found that they had stuck their
precious noses in their mud pies, essaying to play mole and burrow
literally."
"It is the same mystery as the sweating of the corn," replied father,
gathering his letters in a heap and tossing them into a chair with a
gesture of impatience; "none of us may escape, even though we do not
understand it.
"It was years ago that I first heard the legend from an old farmer of the
corn belt, who, longing for a sight of salt water, had drifted eastward
into one of the little hill farms beyond the charcoal camp. He had been
bedridden nearly all winter, but uncomplainingly, his wife and
daughter-in-law caring for him, and it was not until the early part of
May, when all the world was growing green, that he began to mend and at
the same time groan at his confinement.
"I tried to cheer him up, telling him that the worst was over, and that
he soon would be about again, and he replied: ''Tain't me that's doin' of
it, Doctor, hit's the sweatin' of the corn. You know everywhere in May
folks be plantin' corn, the time bein' the sign that frost is over and
done with.' I nodded assent, and he continued: 'Now naterally there's
lots of corn in ear and shelled and ground to meal that isn't planted,
and along as when the kernels in the ground begins to swell and sprout,
this other corn knows it and begins to heave and sweat, and if it isn't
handled careful-like, and taken in the air and cooled, it'll take on all
sorts of moulds and musts, and like as not turn useless.
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