The Fat of the Land Part 3

On Monday I was out by ten o'clock, armed with a surveyor's chain.

Thompson had provided a lot of stakes, and we ran the lines, more or less straight, in general accord with my sketch plan. We walked, measured, estimated, and drove stakes until noon. At one o'clock we were at it again, and by four I was fit to drop from fatigue. Farm work was new to me, and I was soft as soft. I had, however, got the general lay of the land, and could, by the help of the plan, talk of its future subdivisions by numerals,--an arrangement that afterward proved definite and convenient. We adjourned to the shade of the big black oak on the knoll, and discussed the work in hand.

"You cannot finish the cellar before to-morrow night," I said, "because it grows slower as it grows deeper; but that will be doing well enough.

I want you to start two teams ploughing Wednesday morning, and keep them going every day until the frost stops them. Let Sam take the plough, and have young Thompson follow with the subsoiler. Have them stick to this as a regular diet until I call them off. They are to commence in the wheat stubble where lots six and seven will be. I am going to try alfalfa in that ground, though I am not at all sure that it will do well, and the soil must be fitted as well as possible. After it has had deep ploughing it is to be crossed with the disk harrow; then have it rolled, disk it again, and then use the flat harrow until it feels as near like an ash heap as time will permit. We must get the seed in before September."

"We will need another team if you keep two ploughing and one on the harrow," said Thompson.

"You are right, and that means another $400, but you shall have it. We must not stop the ploughs for anything. Numbers 10, 11, 14, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and much of the home lot, ought to be ploughed before snow flies.

That means about 160 acres,--80 odd days of steady work for the ploughmen and horses. You will probably find it best to change teams from time to time. A little variety will make it easier for them. As soon as 6 and 7 are finished, turn the ploughs into the 40 acres which make lots 1 to 5. All that must be seeded to pasture gra.s.s, for it will be our feeding-ground, and we'll be late with it if we don't look sharp.

"We must have more help, by the way. That horse-and-buggy man, Judson, is almost sure to come, and I will find another. Some of you will have to bunk in the hay for the present, for I am going to send out a woman to help your wife. Six men can do a lot of work, but there is a tremendous lot of work to do. We must fit the ground and plant at least three thousand apple trees before the end of November, and we ought to fence this whole plantation. Speaking of fences reminds me that I must order the cedar posts. Have you any idea how many posts it will take to fence this farm as we have platted it? I suppose not. Well, I can tell you. Twenty-two hundred and fifty at one rod apart, or 1850 at twenty feet apart. These posts must be six feet above and three feet below ground. They will cost eighteen cents each. That item will be $333, for there are seven miles of fence, including the line fence between me and my north neighbor. I am going to build that fence myself, and then I shall know whose fault it is if his stock breaks through. Of course some of the old posts are good, but I don't believe one in twenty is long enough for my purpose."

"What do you buy cedar posts for, when you have enough better ones on the place?" asked Thompson.

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well, down in the wood yonder there's enough dead white oak, standing or on the ground, to make three thousand, nine-foot posts, and one seasoned white oak will outlast two cedars, and it is twice as strong."

"Well, that's good! How much will it cost to get them out?"

"About five cents apiece. A couple of smart fellows can make good wages at that price."

"Good. We will save thirteen cents each. They will cost $93 instead of $333. I don't know everything yet, do I, Thompson?"

"You learn easy, I reckon."

"Keep your eyes and ears open, and if you find any one who can do this job, let him have it, for we are going to be too busy with other things at present. It's time for me to be off. I cannot be out again till Thursday, for I must find a man, a woman, and a team of horses and all that goes with them. I'll see you on the 8th at any rate."

I was dead tired when I reached home; but there wasn't a grain of depression in my fatigue,--rather a sense of elation. I felt that for the first time in thirty years real things were doing and I was having a hand in them. The fatigue was the same old tire that used to come after a hard day on my father's farm, and the sense was so suggestive of youth that I could not help feeling younger. I have never gotten away from the faith that the real seed of life lies hidden in the soil; that the man who gives it a chance to germinate is a benefactor, and that things done in connection with land are about the only real things. I have grown younger, stronger, happier, with each year of personal contact with the soil. I am thankful for seven years of it, and look forward to twice seven more. I have lost the softness which nearly wilted me that 5th day of August, and with the softness has gone twenty or thirty pounds of useless flesh. I am hard, active, and strong for a man of sixty, and I can do a fair day's work. To tell the truth, I prefer the moderate work that falls to the lot of the Headman, rather than the more strenuous life of the husbandman; but I find an infinite deal to thank the farm for in health and physical comfort.

CHAPTER IX

HOUSE-CLEANING

After dinner I telephoned the veterinary surgeon that I wanted another team. He replied that he thought he knew of one that would suit, and that he would let me know the next day. I also telephoned two "want ads." to a morning paper, one for an experienced farm-hand, the other for a woman to do general housework in the country. Polly was to interview the women who applied, and I was to look after the men. That night I slept like a hired man.

Out of the dozen who applied the next day I accepted a Swede by the name of Anderson. He was about thirty, tall, thin, and nervous. He did not fit my idea of a stockman, but he looked like a worker, and as I could furnish the work we soon came to terms.

A few words more about Anderson. He proved a worker indeed. He had an insatiable appet.i.te for work, and never knew when to quit. He was not popular at the farm, for he was too eager in the morning to start and too loath in the evening to stop. His unbridled pa.s.sion for work was a thing to be deplored, as it kept him thin and nervous. I tried to moderate this propensity, but with no result. Anderson could not be trusted with horses, or, indeed, with animals of any kind, for he made them as nervous as himself; but in all other kinds of work he was the best man ever at Four Oaks. He worked for me nearly three years, and then suddenly gave out from a pain in his left chest and shortness of breath. I called a physician for poor Anderson, and the diagnosis was dilatation of the heart from over-exercise.

"A rare disease among farm-hands, Dr. Williams," said Dr. High, but my conscience did not fully forgive me. I asked Anderson to stay at the farm and see what could be done by rest and care. He declined this, as well as my offer to send him to a hospital. He expressed the liveliest grat.i.tude for kindnesses received and others offered, but he said he must be independent and free. He had nearly $1200 in a savings bank in the city, and he proposed to use it, or such portion of it as was necessary. I saw him two months later. He was better, but not able to work. Hearing nothing from him for three years, a year ago I called at the bank where I knew he had kept his savings. They had sent sums of money to him, once to Rio Janeiro and once to Cape Town. For two years he had not been heard from. Whether he is living or dead I do not know.

I only know that a valuable man and a unique farm-hand has disappeared.

I never think of Anderson without wis.h.i.+ng I had been more severe with him,--more persistent in my efforts to wean him from his real pa.s.sion.

Peace to his ashes, if he be ashes.

That same day I telephoned the Agricultural Implement Company to send me another wagon, with harness and equipment for the team. The veterinary surgeon reported that he had a span of mares for me to look at, but I was too much engaged that day to inspect the team, and promised to do so on the next.

When I reached home, Polly said she had found nothing in the way of a general housework girl for the country. She had seen nine women who wished to do all other kinds of work, but none to fit her wants.

"What do they come for if they don't want the place we described? Do they expect we are to change our plans of life to suit their personal notions?" she asked.

"It's hard to say what they came for or what they want. Their ways are past finding out. We will put in another 'ad.' and perhaps have better luck."

Wednesday, the 7th, I went to see the new team. I found a pair of flea-bitten gray Flemish mares, weighing about twenty-eight hundred pounds. They were four years old, short of leg and long of body, and looked fit. The surgeon pa.s.sed them sound, and said he considered them well worth the price asked,--$300. I was pleased with the team, and remembered a remark I had heard as a boy from an itinerant Methodist minister at a time when the itinerant minister was supposed to know all there was to know about horse-flesh. This was his remark: "There was never a flea-bitten mare that was a poor horse." In spite of its ambiguity, the saying made an impression from which I never recovered. I always expected great things from flea-bitten grays.

The team, wagon, harness, etc., added $395 to the debit account against the farm. Polly secured her girl,--a green German who had not been long enough in America to despise the country.

"She doesn't know a thing about our ways," said Polly, "but Mrs.

Thompson can train her as she likes. If you can spend time enough with green girls, they are apt to grow to your liking."

On Thursday I saw Anderson and the new team safely started for the farm.

Then Polly, the new girl, and I took train for the most interesting spot on earth.

Soon after we arrived I lost sight of Polly, who seemed to have business of her own. I found the mason and his men at work on the cellar wall, which was almost to the top of the ground. The house was on wheels, and had made most of its journey. The house mover was in a rage because he had to put the house on a hole instead of on solid ground, as he had expected. "I have sent for every stick of timber and every cobbling block I own, to get this house over that hole; there's no money in this job for me; you ought to have dug the cellar after the house was placed," said he.

I made friends with him by agreeing to pay $30 more for the job. The house was safely placed, and by Sat.u.r.day night the foundation walls were finished.

Sam and Zeb had made a good beginning on the ploughing, the teams were doing well for green ones, and the men seemed to understand what good ploughing meant. Thompson and Johnson had spent parts of two days in the potato patches in deadly conflict with the bugs.

"We've done for most of them this time," said Thompson, "but we'll have to go over the ground again by Monday."

The next piece of work was to clear the north forty (lots 1 to 5) of all fences, stumps, stones, and rubbish, and all buildings except the cottage. The barn was to be torn down, and the horses were to be temporarily stabled in the old barn on the home lot. Useful timbers and lumber were to be snugly piled, the manure around the barns was to be spread under the old apple trees, which were in lot No. 1, and everything not useful was to be burned. "Make a clean sweep, and leave it as bare as your hand," I told Thompson. "It must be ready for the plough as soon as possible."

Judson, the man with the buggy, reported at noon. He came with bag and baggage, but not with buggy, and said that he came to stay.

"Thompson," said I, "you are to put Judson in charge of the roan team to follow the boys when they are far enough ahead of him. In the meantime he and the team will be with you and Johnson in this house-cleaning. By to-morrow night Anderson and the new team will get in, and they, too, will help on this job. I want you to take personal charge of the gray team,--neither Johnson nor Anderson is the right sort to handle horses.

The new team will do the trucking about and the regular farm work, while the other three are kept steadily at the ploughs and harrows."

The cleaning of the north forty proved a long job. Four men and two teams worked hard for ten days, and then it was not finished. By that time the ploughmen had finished 6 and 7, and were ready to begin on No.

1. Judson, with the roans and harrows, was sent to the twenty acres of ploughed ground, and Zeb and his team were put at the cleaning for three days, while Sam ploughed the six acres of old orchard with a _shallow-set_ plough. The feeding roots of these trees would have been seriously injured if we had followed the deep ploughing practised in the open. By August 24 about two hundred loads of manure from the barn-yards, the acc.u.mulation of years, had been spread under the apple trees, and I felt sure it was well bestowed. Manuring, turning the sod, pruning, and spraying, ought to give a good crop of fruit next year.

We had several days of rain during this time, which interfered somewhat with the work, but the rains were gratefully received. I spent much of my time at Four Oaks, often going every day, and never let more than two days pa.s.s without spending some hours on the farm. To many of my friends this seemed a waste of time. They said, "Williams is carrying this fad too far,--spending too much time on it."

Polly did not agree with them, neither did I. Time is precious only as we make it so. To do the wholesome, satisfying thing, without direct or indirect injury to others, is the privilege of every man. To the charge of neglecting my profession I pleaded not guilty, for my profession had dismissed me without so much as saying "By your leave." I was obliged to change my mode of life, and I chose to be a producer rather than a consumer of things produced by others. I was conserving my health, pleasing my wife, and at the same time gratifying a desire which had long possessed me. I have neither apology to make nor regret to record; for as individuals and as a family we have lived healthier, happier, more wholesome, and more natural lives on the farm than we ever did in the city, and that is saying much.

CHAPTER X

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