A Tragedy of the Wheat Fields Transcriber Sijia Cheng Encoder Sijia Cheng

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O.W.. A Tragedy of the Wheat Fields. ms., 1922. Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds, 3.1. The Winnifred Eaton Archive, edited by Mary Chapman and Jean Lee Cole, v. 2.0, 03 February 2024, https://winnifredeatonarchive.org/TragedyWheatFields1.html. Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds 3.1 O.W.. A Tragedy of the Wheat Fields. ms., 1922. Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds, 3.1.

Original at University of Calgary in Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds

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 Added citation from bibliography.xml to sourceDesc using utilities/msdesc.xsl. Added note about source proofed Added Transcription Added catRef genre and exhibit. Created file from bibliography entry bibl25 using XSLT. Sijia Cheng Sijia Cheng

Sijia Cheng completed an MA student in English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia and was a research assistant for The Winnifred Eaton Archive. Her research focuses primarily on Asian Canadian literature and queer theory.

Sijia Cheng is an MA student in English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia and a research assistant for The Winnifred Eaton Archive. Her research focuses primarily on Asian Canadian literature and queer theory.

 Winnifred Eaton Winnifred Eaton

See the Biographical Timeline for biographical information on Winnifred Eaton.

 Joey Takeda Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is the Technical Director of The Winnifred Eaton Archive and a Developer at Simon Fraser University’s Digital Humanities Innovation Lab (DHIL). He is a graduate of the M.A. program in English at the University of British Columbia where he specialized in Indigenous and diasporic literature, science and technology studies, and the digital humanities.

 Mary Chapman Mary Chapman

Mary Chapman is the Director of The Winnifred Eaton Archive, a Professor of English, and Academic Director of the Public Humanities Hub at University of British Columbia. She is the author of the award-winning monograph <ref target="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/making-noise-making-news-9780190634506">Making Noise, Making News: Suffrage Print Culture and US Modernism</ref> (Oxford UP) and of numerous articles about American literature and women writers. She has also edited Becoming Sui Sin Far: Early Fiction, Journalism and Travel Writing by Edith Maude Eaton (McGill-Queen’s UP) and published essays on the Eaton sisters in American Quarterly, MELUS, Legacy, Canadian Literature, and American Periodicals. Her current research project is a microhistory of the Eaton family. For more information, see http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/mchapman/.

Sydney Lines Sydney Lines

Sydney Lines is a Ph.D. candidate in English at the University of British Columbia and Project Manager of The Winnifred Eaton Archive. She is writing a dissertation on Winnifred Eaton and Laura Goodman Salverson.

 Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds

Collection of Winnifred Eaton’s papers and unpublished manuscripts, which were transferred to the University of Calgary in 1982. The finding aid for this material is located here: https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/winnifred-eaton-reeve-fonds

A Tragedy of the Wheat Fields by O. W.
Over the fields of rippling gold, Bright the Alberta sun Lingered above the ripening grain, The farmer’s work, well done. Thick as a forest, smoothe smooth and strong, Stood the marvellous wheat, Restlessly stirring and seeming to sway Under the summer heat. Wide spreading fields to the skyline stretched, Over a prairie clean, Ne’er such a crop in all of the years, Had come to this land, I ween. Bent was her back and gray was her head, Rough her hands and chaffed, But she looked at the wheat and her eyes were bright, As she softly, proudly laughed. Out in the fields the binder whirled; The harvest had just begun. Like music, the grind of the blithe, sharp blades, Whistling under that sun. Suddenly out of a bright, blue sky, Like an evil sprite, there sprung A great black hand, that shut out the sun, And over the fields it hung. Still and suspended in the sky, The black cloud paused apace, And then with fury, its fingers spread, In a vast vindictive race. Down spat the hail, in a biting storm, Bullets of ice and snow, And over the trembling, shaking wheat, The frozen rocks plunged low. Shivering and trapped the sensitive grain, Cringed and crouched to the ground, While the storm hissed over the slender stalks, And covered them in a mound. Oh! never was crop more gracious or strong, Or work that was better done Than under that false and smiling sky And bright Alberta sun. And now in the fields where the grain had been But now in the fields where the grain had been Only stubble and stalk; A barren field, bare, bleak and dry, A bitter waste and mock. Her man rode in from the harvest fields, Tired, haggard and grey. He tried to smile, as he patted her back, In his rough yet tender way. But her hands went out with a mothering cry, As she drew his head to her breast, And she said with a smile that was saddeer sadder than tears: Lets Let’s pretend it was for the best!
Calgary 1922.