Rural Life on the Great Plains

Primary Sources: Rural Life on the Great Plains

1. Hamlin GarlandOVERVIEW

Hamlin Garland (1860-1940) spent his youth in rural areas of the Midwest. He became a

novelist and short story writer and often wrote of the hardships of farming life. In the

following excerpt from A Son of the Middle Border (1917), he tells of returning home to visit old friends and neighbors.

Every house I visited had its individual message of sordid [miserable]

struggle and half-hidden despair. Agnes had married and moved away to

Dakota. And Bess had taken upon her girlish shoulders the burdens of

wifehood and motherhood. . . .In addition to the work of being cook and

scrubwoman, she was now a mother and nurse. As I looked around upon her

worn chairs, faded rag carpets, and sagging sofas, the bare walls of her pitiful

little house seemed a prison. I thought of her as she was in the days of her

radiant girlhood, and my throat filled with rebellious pain.

All the gilding [bright surface] of farm life melted away. The hard and

bitter realities came back upon me in a flood. Nature was as beautiful as ever.

The soaring sky was filled with shining clouds. . . . A mystical sheen was on

the odorous [fragrant] grass and waving grain. But no splendor of cloud, no

grace of sunset could conceal the poverty of these people. On the contrary,

[the beauties of nature] brought out . . . the gracelessness of these homes and .

. . the mechanical daily routine of these lives. . . .

Men who were growing bent in digging into the soil spoke to me of their

desire to see something of the great eastern world before they died. Women

whose eyes were faded and dim with tears listened to me with almost

breathless interest [while] I told them of the great cities I had seen—of

wonderful buildings, of theaters, of the music of the sea. Young girls expressed

to me their longing for a life which was better worthwhile. And lads, eager for

adventure and excitement, confided to me their secret intention to leave the

farm at the earliest moment. "I don't intend to wear out my life drudging on

this old place," said Wesley Fancher, with a bitter oath.

2. Willa Cather OVERVIEW

Willa Cather (1876-1947) grew up in Nebraska and later wrote novels ( My Antonia, O Pioneers! ) of immigrant pioneer life based on her experiences there. The following poem deals with the same subject.

PRAIRIE SPRING

Evening and the flat land,

Rich and sombre and always silent;

The miles of fresh-plowed soil,

Heavy and black, full of strength and harshness;

The growing wheat, the growing weeds,

The toiling horses, the tired men;

The long empty roads,

Sullen fires of sunset, fading,

The eternal, unresponsive sky.

Against all this, Youth,

Flaming like the wild roses,

Singing like the larks over the plowed fields,

Flashing like a star out of the twilight;

Youth with its insupportable sweetness,

Its fierce necessity,

Its sharp desire,

Singing and singing,

Out of the lips of silence,

Out of the earthy dusk.