The plow-point was long and
tapering, like the prow of a clipper, and ran far out under the beam,
and above it was the rolling colter, a circular blade of steel, which
cut the edge of the furrow as cleanly as cheese. The lay of the plow,
filed sharp at every round, lay flat, and clove the slice neatly from
the bosom of earth where it had lain from the beginning of time. As the
team steadily pulled the machine along, I heard a curious thrilling
sound as the knife went through the roots, a sort of murmuring as of
protest at this violation--and once in a while, the whole engine, and
the arms of the plowman also, felt a jar, like that of a ship striking a
hidden rock, as the share cut through a red-root--a stout root of wood,
like red cedar or mahogany, sometimes as large as one's arm, topped with
a clump of tough twigs with clusters of pretty whitish blossoms.
As I looked back at the results of my day's work, my spirits rose; for
in the East, a man might have worked all summer long to clear as much
land as I had prepared for a crop on that first day. This morning it had
been wilderness; now it was a field--a field in which Magnus Thorkelson
had planted corn, by the simple process of cutting through the sods with
an ax, and dropping in each opening thus made three kernels of corn.
Surely this was a new world! Surely, this was a world in which a man
with the will to do might make something of himself. No waiting for the
long processes by which the forests were reclaimed; but a new world with
new processes, new neighbors, new ideas, new opportunities, new
victories easily gained.
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