Lexington, VA. In 2020, Cluny Media republished Men in the Field: Eighteen Short Stories by Leo Lewis Ward, C.S.C. I had never heard of Ward before, but the description on Clunyâs website intrigued me:
Men in the Field was first published in 1955, and since then American farmers have witnessed irrevocable changes to their work and way of life. These eighteen stories harvest the humor and pathos, history and myth, of the American cornbelt in a bygone era. The result is a compelling, episodic narrative of American life, in which each moment gleams with their authorâs deep love for the earth and his abiding respect for the men and women who till and tend it.
I grew up on a small farm and have great affection for the works of Willa Cather and Wendell Berry. I ordered the book in the hopes that Wardâs stories, like theirs, would avoid the besetting sin of so much farming literatureâflat characters in flat settings, simplifications of either the pastoral or anti-pastoral variety. I hoped that Wardâs stories of Midwestern farmers would inhabit the thicker middle between those extremes. I hoped they would depict complex characters engaged in that most fundamental yet complex of endeavors.
While waiting for the book to arrive, I tried to find out a little more about Father Ward. I learned that he played varsity basketball at Notre Dame as an undergrad and entered the universityâs founding orderâthe Congregation of Holy Crossâupon graduation in 1920. His Notre Dame obituary notes, âFather Ward was one of the few priests at Notre Dame who was awarded an athletic monogram.â After his ordination, Ward returned to his alma mater as an English professor.
Strangely enough, he was not the only Leo Ward on the faculty of Notre Dame and in the Congregation of Holy Cross. His confrere Leo R. Ward was a leading Neo-Thomist philosopher and Jacques Maritain scholar, but also a fellow farm boy and poet. They became great friends. In the preface he provided for Leo R.âs memoir, acclaimed Notre Dame President Theodore Hesburgh explains that âwe always called him Leo R. (rational) Ward to distinguish him from another legendary teacher here, Father Leo L. (literature) Ward.â
Leo L. Ward edited an abridged version of John Henry Newmanâs The Idea of a University, and he co-authored a pair of textbooks with another Notre Dame English professor, John T. Frederick. These were the publications of a seasoned and thoughtful educator. They grew out of an adulthood devoted to the university. But Ward also published a number of short stories and poems. These had deeper life roots. They grew out of a childhood spent on a farm in Otterbein, Indiana, where he was born in 1898. His stories and poems of rural life appeared in prominent publications, such as Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and the Jesuit magazine America. Frederick published the collection Men in the Field posthumously, after Wardâs death from a heart attack in his mid-fifties. The collection seems to have received little attention outside of the Catholic press and outside of Frederickâs own promotional efforts on behalf of his friendâs work.
This cursory research piqued my interest in Father Ward but tempered my highest hopes for his fiction. Given its limited reception, perhaps Men in the Field would not be a neglected masterwork after all. When the Cluny reprint arrived, though, I soon discovered that it was indeed fit to sit on the shelf alongside Cather and Berry. The stories are somewhat uneven, which is not surprising in a posthumously published collected. Some are evocative vignettes rather than fully developed narratives. The rural drawl of Wardâs Indiana farmers occasionally seems overdone. But the best stories in the volume offer Cather-esque explorations of the links between place and people. As in her fiction, the landscapes pulse with vitality. Wardâs stories also offer visceral, dynamic descriptions of farming workâthe work of human, draft horse, and machine. In his preface, Frederick (who was himself an accomplished fiction writer), observes that âWard knew this [farming] life intimately and lovingly. No detail of fact or function escaped his attention; no variation of attitude or experience exceeded his understandingâ (i). The stories are remarkable as well for their dense layers, for their social, psychological, and emotional intricacies. The first two stories in the collection provide good illustrations of these strengths.
The lead story is titled âThe Threshing Ring.â It is about a group of neighboring farmers, the âringâ of the title, who have purchased a mechanical grain thresher together. The narrative begins at the train station. The farmers eagerly await the new machineâs delivery alongside young âMr. Kenyon, the expert who had arrived yesterday from the factoryâ (2). When the thresher does arrive, it takes them two hours of coordinated effort to unload it from the train.
The opening paragraphs introduce Burl Teeters as the most troublesome member of the ring. He is âa little man with a slight bump high on his backâ (2). Teeters stands apart from the other farmers on the train platform. He âseemed to pay no attention to the excited talk going on all about him, except to throw an occasional scowl over his shoulder when Jay Westwright was talkingâ (2). Indeed, throughout much of the story one wonders if Teeters is part of the ring in any sense beyond a legal share in the machine, if he is truly a friend and fellow. He is opinionated, bossy, and often belligerent. The other farmers are affable and neighborly. They share their ideas about how the work should go, but they are also respectful of each other and of the new machine and deferential to the âexpertâ Kenyon. This is especially true of Westwright, who serves as Teetersâ foil. When Westwright suggests to Kenyon that they unload the machine near the engine room, he does so âin a quiet, respectful toneâ (2). Teeters, by contrast, jumps up on the thresher as soon as the train stops, tugging âviolentlyâ on a belt and working levers (4). He badgers Kenyon during the unloading and scorns Westwrightâs humble competency. âYeah, you think youâre runninâ the whole works,â Teeters says to Westwright. âWell, Iâll tell you one thing youâre not runninâ. Anâ thatâs the engine. Iâm the one thatâs running that engineâ (6). Westwrightâs anger flares for a moment, but he contains it and ultimately grants Teetersâ wish to be the engineer. He tells the others that Teeters can âprobably learn to run it all right, if Mr. Kenyon would just keep a close watch on him for a whileâ (6).
But Teeters does not want to be watched, and disaster strikes when they are out in the field. Teeters jerks one lever too many and the huge belt connecting the steam engine to the separator breaks. The out-of-control engine, with Teeters still perched on top, nearly runs into the separator, on which Westwright and others are standing. The farmers, perhaps grateful that a far greater disaster has been averted, do not berate Teeters, but he is preemptively enraged at them, and especially at Westwright: âYeah, you wonât say anything! You donât dare, thatâs what you donât. You donât dare say anything about my runninâ that engine. Itâs your fault anyway, anâ you know it. You bought that engine anâ you got slippinâ levers, thatâs what you didâ (11). Teeters lets out a manic laugh like the squeal of a strained, off-kilter belt, âgrowing higher and more shrill until at last it suddenly dropped to a sort of jerky cackleâ (11). He ultimately storms out of the field in a huff. It seems that his loose connection to the threshing circle is as shredded as the belt.
Yet that evening, as the men relax in Bert Helkerâs farmyard, they tell an incredulous Kenyon that Teeters will be back the next day as soon as the new belt arrives, acting like the accident never happened and assuming he will continue as engineer. Kenyon is even more incredulous when they say that they will let him run the engine again. He asks, âBut couldnât you just kind of ease him out some way? Maybe get him out of the ring some way. Might buy up his share in the machine, boys. Couldnât you do that?â (14-15). Westwright says that he does not think they could. Teeters would not sell for one thing. And, as Helker, adds, âDonât think the boysâd want to put him out exactlyâ (15). Even if Teeters does not honor the thicker bonds of neighbor and community on his end, the rest of the ring honors it on theirs. (This calls to mind the deeper kind of belonging that Berryâs fiction describes as âmembership.â)
The start of âThe Threshing Ringâ suggests a familiar pattern in farming storiesâthe arrival of the machine that signals a new era, that will perhaps bring new efficiencies but might also break up what is good in the older, more communal ways. The near collision with the steam engine, which could easily have killed some members of the community, can be read along such lines. Kenyonâs suggestion that the ring buy out Teeters might also plausibly point in this direction. One senses that Teeters would buy them out if he could, that he would readily trade a barn full of machines for shared work with his neighbors.
But in the end the story is less about modernization than the perennial problem of dealing with a difficult personality. It is less about the malfunctioning of machines than about human mysteries. Kenyon, for one, gains a new appreciation for the latter. In the first half of the story, up through the accident, he is always referred to as âthe expert.â In the second half he is just Kenyon. His exasperation at Teeters reveals a limit to his expertise. Here the farmers in the ring have wisdom to share.
Unless, of course, one reads the farmers as unwise. Their evening conversation ends when they hear Teeters calling his hogs in the distance, âshrill and thin, somehow like an impudent, insistent challenge too distant to be answered at allâ (16). Maybe the other farmers are dupes for not answering Teetersâ challenge more directly, for putting up with too much from him. Arenât they ultimately as beholden to his âimpudentâ call as the hogs?
This is plausible given the ambiguities of the storyâs ending, but it does not seem like the best reading. There are hints throughout the story that there are limits to what the ring will put up with from Teeters. There are moments when he comes close to pushing Westwright too far, for instance. And the farmers do not plan on allowing Teeters to ruin another belt and cause another accident. Westwright tells Kenyon âto stay right around that engine. Just practically run it yourself, Mr. Kenyonâ (15). They seem to know that Teeters can be a capable enough engineer if the necessary instruction is thrust upon him. They are aware of his abilities as well as his flaws. They also seem to view Teetersâ impudence and imprudence as a burden they must bear as best they can. Perhaps they disperse when they hear Teetersâ call because it reminds them they will likely need the patience born of a good nightâs sleep. They also seem to feel sorry for Teeters. This is laced with indignation and probably a measure of contempt. The men in the ring are decent but still human. When Teeters calls his hogs in the darkness, Ambrose Mull observes, âThatâs a Teeters for you, callinâ his hogs this time a night when everâbody else has his chorinâ done and forgot about it a couple hours agoâ (15). There is a restlessness and a lack of fluidity in Teeters. He cannot, for whatever reason, find the same rhythm of work and rest as the others, and that is cause enough to shake oneâs head.
âDrought,â the second story in Men in the Field, deals with one of farmingâs most basic trials. It focuses on a small cast of unnamed charactersâa man, a woman, and a childâand it is less clearly situated in time than âThe Threshing Ring.â The premise, characters, and temporality are thus archetypal, but the descriptions are vividly particular. âDroughtâ begins with the farmer steering a horse-drawn plow over desiccated ground: âThe corn stretched away, grayish and dead in the blinding light. He knew every blade in the fields was cooked and shrivelled by the drought. Farther away he saw other cornfields, mere strips of gray haze drifting toward the shimmering horizonâ (19). Ward distinguishes different heats and the farmerâs experience of them. Out in the open fields, in the direct sunlight, âthe heat was wreathing visibly upward from the earth into the vast white sky. Farther away he could see other teams plowing, dirty smudges of cloud trailing through a sea of quivering lightâ (20). The barn, on the other hand, âwas full of dead, motionless heatâ (20). At lunch the exhausted, desperate farmer sits down in front of a âplate of steaming foodâ (20). His wife seems isolated from him, âstrangely cool and comfortableâ (21). One can imagine the look on his face, the tension he exudes. This tension, as much as the heat, seems to separate him from his family: âEven the child did not come to stand beside him now, or pull at his shirt and ask him to put jelly on her breadâ (21). After lunch he lies down for a few moments in the spare shade of a maple tree, where âseared blades of the grass tickled the sensitive, burned skin on the back of his neckâ (21). Then he goes back to the fields once more, to the great clouds of choking dust and the prairieâs âvague disk of seething heatâ (21).
During the afternoon, though, clouds gather on the horizon and the wind picks up. The draught finally relents. The farmer drives his team across the fields in a pelting rain: âA kind of crazed gladness seemed to possess him. His voice broke above the hollow roar of the wind. And now he was laughing, and shouting wildly, his voice sometimes rising almost to a kind of sobbing frenzy, as he went leaping on through the stormâ (24). He arrives back at his porch and hoists his child onto his sopping shoulders âwith a great swoop, then turned and pointed a wet arm out into the stormâ (25). The story thus swings from despair to joy, even from death to life: âThe man smiled as his eyes moved slowly over all the stark outlines of the prairie. He felt the whole earth living again. And deep within him, he felt his breath coming fresh and coolâ (25).
But there is a third act in this primal drama, and it is tragic. The rain subsides, but âa kind of distant clattering arose. The man heard it growing louder, and coming rapidly closer. Then, only a few moments later, he saw the first white pebbles of the hail come dancing over the grass of the yardâ (26). The hail shreds his rejuvenated corn and his rejuvenated harvest hopes. His wife tries to get him to come inside the house. He turns away to hide his tears: ââNo,â he said kindly, âI must go out to the barn now. Havenât even unharnessed the horses yetâ (26-27). In a way, the story ends where it beginsâwith perseverance, with a farmer carrying on with his work despite the manifest failure of his crop. Even with the ravages of the hail, though, the storm still seems to have softened something in the manâs heart. He is no longer near a boiling point, no longer isolated from his family. He is in grief, but he can now speak âkindly.â He is not grimly driving his horses across his fields as he was at the storyâs beginning. He is instead going to care for them in the barn.
While Ward was a priest, religion is rarely at the fore in the collection. It is more implicit than explicit. The members of the threshing ring are humble and exceedingly patient. They are more Christian than Classical in their virtues. They suggest that the steam engineâs near miss of the separator and the men standing on it is a miracle. They quickly leave this topic behind, though, perhaps out of a sense of reverence. âDroughtâ dramatizes the deep connections between perplexity, gratitude, and agriculture, connections to which many ancient religions gave ritual shape and expression. There are also biblical echoes in the story, though, especially in the farmerâs Adamic toil in the dust, and perhaps too in the rainstormâs fleeting, tantalizing hints of an Eden not entirely lost. The farmer ultimately undergoes kenosis, and this allows for some renewal of hope and love even within the disaster.
This seemingly baseless hope calls to mind a more overtly religious poem I turned up while researching Ward. He published it in the April 26, 1941 issue of America. It is titled âMeditation for Harvestâ:
I know how quickly the blossom
Falls in the rain,
How soon the green-gold fades
From the grain.I know the world as a shadow
Soon will pass,
And nothing is much greater
Than the grass.Only the dead black branches
Of one bitter Tree
Will bear their sweet Fruit
Deathlessly.
This poem would make a fitting epigraph to Men in the Field. One senses that it reveals the hidden spiritual heart of these stories of satisfaction and woe, of virtue and vice.
“‘Meditation for Harvest’ was reprinted with permission of America Press, Inc. All rights reserved.”