The Worst Hard Time

The beginning of this chapter showcases more facts about the economic and environmental devastation of the Dust Bowl. High Plains' residents are now fighting back. The National Farmers Holiday Association tells its members to buy or sell nothing in an effort to force President Hoover to fix a minimum price on wheat. Edward O'Neal represents the American Farm Bureau and tells Congress in 1932, “Unless something is done for the American farmer we will have revolution in the countryside in less than twelve months” (104). The Folkers are learning “to use their wheat for something in every meal” (105). People barter with neighbors and feed tumbleweed to their cattle. The Boise City wheat farmers band together at foreclosures and bid only ten cents for a tractor. A hangman's noose appears outside the bank's auction site.

The chapter ends in January of 1932 with the citing of a “black blizzard,” another thick, ten-thousand-foot-high cloud that appears in Amarillo, TX, and then moves north along the Dust Bowl (113). This second black cloud (which the weather bureau is still not able to identify or explain) leaves the streets of Dalhart, Texas full of black dust, covers the furniture inside of Dick Coon's De Soto Hotel lobby, the dining room table of “Doc” Dawson, and the pool table at Dalhart's local bar.