It was a summer night in Ohio and the wheat in the long, flat fields that
stretched away to the north from the town of Bidwell was ripe for the
cutting. Between the wheat fields lay corn and cabbage fields. In the corn
fields the green stalks stood up like young trees. Facing the fields lay
the white roads, once the silent roads, hushed and empty through the nights
and often during many hours of the day, the night silence broken only at
long intervals by the clattering hoofs of homeward bound horses and the
silence of days by creaking wagons. Along the roads on a summer evening
went the young farm hand in his buggy for which he had spent a summer's
wage, a long summer of sweaty toil in hot fields. The hoofs of his horse
beat a soft tattoo on the roads. His sweetheart sat beside h
