The Story of the Soil Part 21

"'Your corn seems to be looking mighty yellow?'

"'Yes, suh,' says Bob. 'Yes, suh, we done planted yellow corn.'

"'Well, I mean it looks as though you won't get more than half a crop,' says he.

"'I reckon not,' says Bob. 'The landlord, he done gets the other half.'

"With that the fellow says to Bob:

"'It seems to me you're mighty near a fool.'

"'Yes, suh,' says Bob, 'and I'm mighty feared I'll catch it if I don't get a goin'.'

"The fellow just gave his horse a cut and drove on, but I liked to died. He'd been here two or three times pestering me with questions about raising tobacco. Say, you ain't one of them Government fellows, are you? They were travelling all around over this county three years ago, learning how we raised tobacco and all kinds of crops. They had augers and said they were investigating soils, but I never heard nothing of 'em since. Have you got an auger to investigate soils with?"

Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was trying to learn all he could about the soil.

He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his land happened to be situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.

Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr.

Jones was standing.

"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still boring holes, are you? Want to bore around over my farm again, do you?"

Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind of land.

"That's all right, Young Man. Just bore as many holes as you please.

I suppose you'd rather do that than work; but you'll have to excuse me. I've got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. I can't take time again to tell you fellows how to raise tobacco. Good day."

CHAPTER XXVI

ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO

THE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a pocket and filled his mouth with a chew of tobacco.

He walked by Percy's buggy with the tobacco juice drizzling from the corners of his mouth, and turned down the road toward the house.

Percy finished boring the hole and then returned to the buggy.

"Christ, that old man eats tobacco like a beast!" exclaimed the driver as Percy approached.

"Are you speaking to me?" asked Percy.

"Why, certainly."

"That is not my name, please," admonished Percy, "but I can tell you that I know Him well and that He is my best friend."

"What, old Al Jones?"

"No,--Christ," replied Percy, with a grieved expression plainly discernible.

"Oh," said the driver.

They drove past the Jones residence and out into the field beyond.

The house one might have thought deserted except for the well-beaten paths and the presence of chickens in the yard. It was a large structure with two and a half stories. The cornice and window tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs revealed the beauty and wealth of former days. Rare shrubs still grew in the s.p.a.cious front yard, and gnarled remnants of orchard trees were to be seen in the rear. A dozen other buildings, large and small, occupied the background, some with the roofs partly fallen, others evidently still in use.

"How old do you suppose these buildings are?" asked Percy of the driver.

"About a hundred years," he replied, "and I reckon they've had no paint nor fixin' since they was built, 'cept they have to give some of 'em new s.h.i.+ngles now and then or they'd all fall to pieces like the old barns back yonder."

Percy examined the soil in several places on the Jones farm and on other farms in the neighborhood. They lunched on crackers and canned beans at a country store and made a more extended drive in the afternoon.

"It is a fine soil," Percy said to the driver, as they started for Leonardtown. "It contains enough sand for easy tillage and quick drainage, and enough clay to hold anything that might be applied to it."

"That's right," said the driver. "Where they put plenty of manure and fertilizer they raise tobacco three foot high and fifteen hundred pounds to the acre, but where they run the tobacco rows beyond the manured land so's to be sure and not lose any manure, why the stuff won't grow six inches high and it just turns yellow and seems to dry up, no matter if it rains every day. Say, Mister, would you mind telling me if you're a preacher?"

"Oh, no," replied Percy, "--I am not a preacher, any more than every Christian must be loyal to the name."

"Well, anyway, I've learned a lesson I'll try to remember. I never thought before about how it might hurt other people when I swear. I don't mean nothing by it. It's just a habit; but your saying Christ is your friend makes me feel that I have no business talking about anybody's friend, any more than I'd like to hear anybody else use my mother's name as a by-word. I reckon n.o.body has any right to use Christ's name 'cept Christians or them as wants to be Christians. I reckon we'd never heard the name if it hadn't a been for the Christians.

"But I don't have so many bad habits. I don't drink, nor smoke, nor chew; and I don't want to. My father smoked some and chewed a lot, and I know the smell of tobacco used to make my mother about as sick as she could be; but she had to stand it, or at least she did stand it till father died; and now she lives with me, and I'm mighty glad she don't have to smell no more tobacco

"She often speaks of it--mother does; and she says she's so thankful she's got a boy that don't use tobacco. She says men that use tobacco don't know how bad it is for other folks to smell 'em. Why, sometimes I come home when I've just been driving a man some place in the country, riding along like you and I are now, and he a smoking or chewing, or at least his clothes soaked full of the vile odor; and when I get home mother says, 'My! but you must have had an old stink pot along with you to-day.' She can smell it on my clothes, and I just hang my coat out in the shed till the scent gets off from it.

"No, Sir, I don't want any tobacco for me, and I don't know as I'd care to raise the stuff for other folks to saturate themselves with either; and every kid is allowed to use it nowadays, or at least most of them get it. It's easy enough to get it. Why, a kid can't keep away from getting these cigarettes, if he tries. They're everywhere. Every kid has hip pockets full; and I know blamed well that some smoke so many cigarettes they get so they aren't more than half bright. It's a fact, Sir,--plenty of 'em too; and some old men, like Al Jones, are just so soaked in tobacco they seem about half dead. Course it ain't like whiskey, but I think it's worse than beer if beer didn't make one want whiskey later.

"But as I was saying, I feel that I have no business saying things about,--about anybody you call your friend, and I think I'll just swear off swearing, if I can."

"You can if you will just let Him be your friend."

"Well, I don't know much about that," was the slow reply. "That takes faith, and I don't have much faith in some of the church members I know."

"That used to trouble me also," said Percy, "until one time the thought impressed itself upon me that even Christ himself did all His great work with one of the twelve a traitor; and this thought always comes to me now when self-respecting men object to uniting with organized Christianity because of those who may be regarded as traitors or hypocrites, but not of such flagrant character as to insure expulsion from the Church?"

"Do you believe in miracles?" asked the driver.

"Oh, yes," said Percy, "in such miracles as the growth of the corn plant."

"Why, that isn't any miracle. Everybody understands all about that."