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Pipe of Peace By: James McKimmey (1923-) |
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Pipe of Peace By James McKimmey, Jr.
[Illustration] The farmer refused to work. His wife, a short thin woman with worried
eyes, watched him while he sat before the kitchen table. He was thin,
too, like his wife, but tall and tough skinned. His face, with its
leather look was immobile. "Why?" asked his wife. "Good reasons," the farmer said. He poured yellow cream into a cup of coffee. He let the cup sit on the
table. "Henry?" said the woman, as though she were really speaking to someone
else. She walked around the kitchen in quick aimless bird steps. "My right," said Henry. He lifted his cup, finally, tasting. "We'll starve." "Not likely. Not until everybody else does, anyway." The woman circled the room and came back to her husband. Her eyes
winked, and there were lines between them. Her fingers clutched the edge
of the table. "You've gone crazy," she said, as though it were a
half question, a half pronouncement. The farmer was relaxing now, leaning back in his chair. "Might have.
Might have, at that." " Why? " she asked. The farmer turned his coffee cup carefully. "Thing to do, is all. Each
man in his own turn. This is my turn." The woman watched him for a long time, then she sat down on a chair
beside the table. The quick, nervous movement was gone out of her, and
she sat like a frozen sparrow. The farmer looked up and grinned. "Feels good. Just to sit here. Does
well for the back and the arms. Been working too hard." "Henry," the woman said. The farmer tasted his coffee again. He put the cup on the table and
leaned back, tapping his browned fingers. "Just in time, I'd say. Waited
any longer, it wouldn't have done any good. Another few years, a farmer
wouldn't mean anything." The woman watched him, her eyes frightened as though he might suddenly
gnash his teeth or leap in the air. "Pretty soon," the farmer said, "they'd have it all mechanical. Couldn't
stop anything. Now," he said, smiling at his wife, "we can stop it all." "Henry, go out to the fields," the woman said. "No," Henry said, standing, stretching his thin, hard body. "I won't go
out to the fields. Neither will August Brown nor Clyde Briggs nor Alfred
Swanson. None of us. Anywhere. Not until the food's been stopped long
enough for people to wake up." The farmer looked out of the kitchen window, beyond his tractor and the
cow barn and the windmill. He looked at rows of strong corn, shivering
their soft silk in the morning breeze. "We'll stop the corn. Stop the
wheat. Stop the cattle, the hogs, the chickens." "You can't." " I can't. But all of us together can." "No sense," the woman said, wagging her head. "No sense." "It's sense, all right. Best sense we've ever had. Can't use an army
with no stomach. Old as the earth. Can't fight without food. Takes food
to run a war." "You'll starve the two of us, that's all you'll do. Nobody else will
stop work." The farmer turned to his wife. "Yes, they will. Everywhere a farmer is
the same. He works the land. He reads the papers. He votes. He listens
to the radio. He watches the television. Mostly, he works the land.
Alone, with his own thoughts and ideas. He isn't any different in Maine
than he is in Oregon. We've all stopped work. Now. This morning." "How about those across the ocean? Are they stopping, too? They're not
going to feed up their soldiers? To kill us if we don't starve first?
To " "They stopped, too. A farmer is a farmer. Like a leaf on a tree. No
matter on what tree in what country on whose land. A leaf is a leaf. A
farmer's the same. A farmer is a farmer." "It won't work," the woman said dully. "Yes, it will." "They'll make you work." "How? It's our own property." "They'll take it away from you." "Who'll work it then?" The woman rocked in her chair, her mouth quivering. "They'll get
somebody." The farmer shook his head... Continue reading book >>
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Literature |
Science |
Short stories |
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