"The
tractor driver does nothing but sit--so it appears to the outsider. Pulling a
lister through tough Kansas gumbo soil entails a lot of work that doesn't
appear on the surface, however. After
four hours aboard our Farmall tractor I felt as if I had done a day's
work. The job is wearing on the
nerves--and eardrums--more than on the sinews and muscles. The illusion of
pastoral peacefulness--which I had built up over the weekend here- has left me
amidst the cacophony of a growling, roaring tractor, and a squeaking,
hard-pulling lister. The noise still rings in my ears two hours later."
--Letter from my father, Bloomington, Kans., to
my mother, Winfield, Kans., Monday, June 16, 1947.
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