Farmer Yule's Dilemma

The Champion horses had been picked, and the barrows (pigs), the sheep, the five healthiest boys & girls from the 4-H Clubs (Head, Heart, Hands, Health), the best 4-H cooks and dressmakers. Kings of corn, oats, hay, soybeans, wheat, alfalfa seed had all been crowned. The crowd had taken its fill of side-show exhibits: insect pests, choice meat cuts, Sculptor Charles Umlauf 's 13 skating pigs done in lard. Then into the ring at the Chicago Stockyards' International Amphitheatre stepped a hulk ing, bullnecked man with sagging trousers and a wise, weathered face. He was farmer J. Charles Yule, of Alberta, Canada, who had been given the ticklish job of choosing the grand champion steer of the show. This was the big show's climax.

It was the first time since World War I that this event in the International Live stock Exposition and Horse Show had had a Canadian judge. Formerly, because both U. S. and Canadian farmers exhibit, the judge was either an Englishman, Scotsman or South American. But this year the war made another exception. Canadian Charlie Yule took the job, with misgivings. While the hushed crowd of 15.000 watched, Judge Yule weeded out the entries to the four finalists: two from Purdue University, "Loyal Alumnus III" and "College Maid"; the University of Alberta's "Robin Hood" and 18-year-old Evelyn Asay's fat little "Sargo." Judge Yule paced from one to another in solemn worriment, arms hang ing, fingers outstretched like a house guest looking for a towel. Finally he waved the Purdue entries aside. Josh Biglands, sawedoff, red-faced herdsman of the University of Alberta, shortened his grip on "Robin Hood's" tether and nudged the Shorthorn steer's feet so that his 1,245 pounds were evenly distributed. Pretty Evelyn Asay, of Mt. Carroll, Ill., just hung on, let her Hereford shift his steaks however it suited him. Her bare knees shook with excitement in her half-length boots.

She had the crowd with her, as Judge Yule well knew. He fiddled with a Canadian $5 gold piece on his watch chain. He felt the tailhead of Canadian-bred Shorthorn and U. S.-bred Hereford, poked ribs, chest, shoulders like a house guest poking the guest bed mattress. He tipped his hat forward, tipped it back. He held a whispered consultation with Armour & Co.'s portly old Colonel Edward Norris Wentworth, perennial ringmaster of livestock shows, who apparently gave him no help.

Farmer Yule confessed afterwards: "That was the toughest job I ever had. There I was with one of the finest animals I ever saw and he had to come from only 100 miles from my own home. 'I can't go taking all the honors back home with me,' I said to myself. 'Not in these times when we're at war.' "

Finally Judge Yule stepped forward, patted "Sargo's" flank. The crowd gave a whoop of delight. Yule mopped his brow and crammed a cigar into his mouth. He was later heard to declare: "I think maybe the Hereford had a little more cover on the loin."

Happy but tearful Evelyn, who had raised her sleek popular champion from a calf, next day saw him auctioned off to Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. for a fancy $3.30 a pound. (Runner-up "Robin Hood" sold for 60-c- a pound.) Evelyn said she would use "Sargo's" $835 prize money and the $3,587.10 he had fetched as beef to finish her schooling at Frances Shimer Junior College and to buy her farmer father a farm of his own.

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