In the horse drawn days of farming, corn pickers weren’t what we have today. Dry, ripe fields of corn were cut off just above ground level. Individual stalks were gathered into an armful bundle, and tied with twine. After Cyrus McCormick’s invention of the corn binder, that part of the job was done by machine. And, those bundles were left lying on the ground. Farmers stacked the individual bundles upright, into corn shocks. The next step was to drive a wagon along the rows and load the bundles up onto the wagon to take to the thrashing machine..
Well, sometimes field mice would take shelter inside those shocks. And when a man would start dissembling the shock, mice would run out and away. If a booted pant leg was handy, a mouse would scamper right up. Leading to the infamous corn shock dance, accompanied by mal-odious music. They learned early on to wrap pant leg cuffs with binder twine, and knot it tightly.
When I was about 4, a 60 acre field of those corn shocks were just across the road. To Tippy (my beagle) and me, they weren’t corn shocks - they were India tepees! A WHOLE village of’em! We spent several days hunkered back inside some of them. We held war councils, watched herds of passing buffaloes (black and white Holstein cows looked just like buffalo to us), and plotted raids on neighboring villages.
In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing that Mom and Dad had an ironclad rule about matches. I don’t think my uncle would have appreciated field roasted corn.
