Chapter 201
Farmers' Cooperatives
Chapter 201 Farmers' Cooperatives
The day after his call with Isabella, Arthur continued his advance into the heart of Nebraska.
The black storm had just receded, leaving the vast plains devastated.
Along both sides of the highway, every few hundred meters you can see a farm that has been shut down.
The farmers either committed suicide in despair or stuffed their remaining rubbish into their carts and joined the long westward exodus of refugees.
In this land of despair, as Arthur drove into a low-lying area of Carney County, a strange change occurred in the scene before him.
In this valley, a miraculously existing piece of land, spanning several thousand acres, has emerged that still thrives.
The fields were neatly divided into plots, each planted with something. Some were corn, some wheat, and some potatoes.
In the surrounding stillness, this patch of green stood out starkly, like an oasis in the desert.
Arthur slowed down and observed carefully.
He noticed that the windbreaks here had been artificially reinforced.
Although those trees were also blown crooked by the wind, at least they were still alive and doing their duty to block the wind and sand.
To his surprise, the irrigation ditches had been cleaned up thoroughly.
In a place where everyone is crushed by despair, there are still people willing to expend this kind of effort.
In the distance, a huge red brick building appears on the horizon.
It was a barn, very large, several times larger than the small barns on the surrounding farms.
On the roof of the barn, several eye-catching characters are painted in white, clearly visible even from several kilometers away: "Kani County Agricultural Mutual Aid Cooperative".
Arthur stepped on the gas and drove toward the barn.
Arthur parked the car fifty meters from the entrance, opened the car door, and walked over.
He hadn't taken more than a few steps when two men carrying old Winchester rifles jumped out of the guard post and blocked his way.
"Halt! Who goes there?"
Arthur raised his hands and stood still.
He sized up the two men: both around thirty years old, with stubble on their faces, rough and reddish skin from the wind and sand, and wearing faded work clothes.
The man on the left, his face flushed, took a step forward and pointed his gun at Arthur's chest.
"Step back, city folks. This is cooperative territory. We don't welcome debt collectors with court summonses, nor do we welcome journalists who are lapdogs to the banks."
His voice was cold, and his finger was already on the trigger. If Arthur took another step forward, the old-fashioned rifle would fire.
Arthur remained calm. He kept his hand raised and slowly, very slowly, reached into his trench coat pocket with his other hand.
The two men simultaneously lowered the muzzle of their guns, the safety already off.
"Don't be nervous. I'm just taking out a book."
Arthur held the crumpled volume of "The Grapes of Wrath" between his fingers, slowly, very slowly, pulled it out, and handed it to the two men.
"My name is Arthur Kennedy. I wrote this book."
The two men were stunned.
The man on the left, his face flushed, stared at the book's cover, at the title on the cover, and at the name below the cover, his eyes slowly widening.
"Arthur Kennedy? You're the Arthur Kennedy who wrote *The Grapes of Wrath*?"
Arthur nodded.
The man on the right suddenly lowered his gun, rushed to him, grabbed the book, flipped to the title page, looked at the blurry photo of the author, and then looked up at Arthur's face.
"My God—it really is you! The night before last, my son was reading this book to us by the light of a kerosene lamp! When he got to the part where Tom Jord picks up the shovel, my wife cried all night!"
He turned around and shouted towards the barn, "Simon! Simon! Come out quickly! The author is here! Arthur Kennedy is here!"
The barn door was pushed open, and a middle-aged man strode out.
He was in his early forties, wearing overalls stained with engine oil, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing his muscular forearms.
He walked up to Arthur, stopped, and stared at him for a long time.
Then he reached out and grasped Arthur's hands firmly.
"Mr. Kennedy. My name is Simon. I'm the founder of this cooperative. Welcome."
Ten minutes later, Arthur was ushered into the huge red brick barn.
The sight inside the barn took him by surprise. It wasn't just a place to store food; it was a complete miniature community.
In the center of the barn is a wide open space, which is used as a public activity area.
Several long tables made of wooden planks were placed there, surrounded by dozens of benches.
On the table were several enamel mugs and empty wine bottles, with a few dried wildflowers stuck in the bottles.
Around the open space, sacks of grain were piled against the wall. The sacks were stacked neatly, and each one had writing on it in charcoal.
Arthur leaned closer to look and saw that it contained names and dates: "The Jansen family, March", "The Peterson family, April", and "The Olsen family, April".
On the other side of the granary, several farm tools were neatly arranged.
An old-fashioned Dilling tractor, though rusty, still had air in its tires.
The metal parts of the two seeders were coated with anti-rust oil.
There were also a few hoes, a few shovels, and several other implements, all cleaned thoroughly and hung on the wall.
A simple blacksmith shop was set up in one corner of the barn.
A stove, anvil, hammer, and pliers were all present. The fire in the stove was still burning, and several newly repaired sickles were piled on the ground beside it.
Simon walked to a long table, pulled out a bench, and gestured for Arthur to sit down. Several farmers gathered around, looking at him with a mixture of awe and curiosity.
"Mr. Kennedy, everyone here has read your book. Every evening, after we finish our work, we gather around this table and listen to the literate person read it aloud, paragraph by paragraph."
Simon exhaled a puff of smoke, which slowly dissipated in the dim light.
"What you wrote is our real life."
He paused, looking into Arthur's eyes.
"If we hadn't read your article in the column calling for farmers to unite, our group of sixty households would probably be on the road to fleeing famine right now."
Arthur looked around the enormous barn and asked curiously, "Simon, all the farms outside went bankrupt, how did you survive?"
Simon sighed and gestured around with his pipe.
"It was forced upon us. Without unity, there is death."
He began to tell the story of the cooperative.
That happened last autumn.
Grain prices plummeted to an all-time low. A bushel of corn was selling for only fifteen cents, not even enough to cover shipping costs.
The bank's collection letters kept coming in, and the tone of those letters became more and more aggressive, eventually turning into "either pay back the money or hand over the land."
Simon and his neighbors, a total of more than sixty households, are all old farmers who have been cultivating this land for decades.
Their grandparents cleared the land here, their fathers built houses here, and they themselves raised their children here.
But now, the bank says that the land no longer belongs to you.
"During that time, people would knock on my door every night, asking me what to do. Some said they would go to the city to find a lawyer, some said they would sit in front of the bank, and some said they would just fight it out and take a shotgun to fight those people who came to take over the land."
He shook his head.
"I know none of that will work. Hire a lawyer? Where would we get the money to hire a lawyer? Sit-in? Those people at the bank don't care if you sit in or not. Fight it out? They have guns, police, and courts. We can't win."
One night, a dozen or so people sat in Simon's kitchen until dawn.
"Just before dawn, someone suddenly said, 'Could we combine our land for farming?'"
These words were like a bolt of lightning, cleaving through the darkness of that night.
"Let's start doing the math. All the land owned by each household adds up to several thousand acres. All the farm tools owned by each household include one tractor, three seeders, and a dozen or so tractors."
The combined savings of all the households amounted to several hundred dollars. The combined labor force of all the households numbered several dozen strong men.
He looked up at Arthur.
"We suddenly realized that if we went it alone, none of us would survive. But if we came together, we could still make a living."
Thus, the Carni County Agricultural Mutual Aid Cooperative was born.