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Hidden Treasure: The Story of a Chore Boy Who Made the Old Farm Pay

by John Thomas Simpson · English · Gutenberg #5870 · 414,791 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Hidden Treasure: The Story of a Chore Boy Who Made the Old Farm Pay

Author: John Thomas Simpson


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5870]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HIDDEN TREASURE: THE STORY OF A CHORE BOY WHO MADE THE OLD FARM PAY ***




Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Charles Franks
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team





HIDDEN TREASURE

THE STORY OF A CHORE BOY WHO MADE THE OLD FARM PAY

BY

JOHN THOMAS SIMPSON

COLORED FRONTISPIECE BY E.H. SUYDAM
AND 16 ILLUSTRATIONS

PHILADELPHIA & LONDON

1919



PREFACE


A few years ago the author visited the farm in Western Pennsylvania on
which he had lived for a number of years when a boy. Much to his
surprise there was not a boy of his acquaintance still on the
neighboring farms, many of which had passed into other hands, and in
some cases even the names of the original owners had been forgotten.

He bumped over the two short miles of road, still deep with mud,
between the town and the farm, and could scarcely recognize in the
weedy fields before him, with their broken-down fences partly
concealed by undergrowth, the fertile acres of his boyhood.

The orchard, once kept so neatly pruned, was now with trees that were
gnarled and broken--while rich bottom land, so productive in years
past, was foul with all manner of rank growth. The lane leading up to
the house from the main road was in such bad repair that he had to
leave his automobile on the main road and complete his journey on
foot.

Investigation showed that many of the farms in the neighborhood were
in a similar rundown condition; that farm work was generally
considered unprofitable or uncongenial; and that the boys and girls
born in the country usually took the first opportunity to leave the
farms, often for harder and less profitable work in the cities.

In the hope that many boys and girls now living on farms, as well as
others, who, if they knew of the advantages of labor-saving machinery
and modern farm buildings (to say nothing of the interest of outdoor
work), would take up this, the most profitable and independent of all
occupations--FARMING--this story of Hidden Treasure is written.

THE AUTHOR
FEBRUARY, 1919




ACKNOWLEDGMENTS


The author begs to acknowledge his indebtedness for valuable
information to:

A.A. Drew, Superintendent of Agencies, of the Mutual Benefit Life
Insurance Company, Newark, New Jersey, for Constructive Banking and
Life Insurance.

Bucyrus Company, South Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for Trenching with Steam
Shovels.

Waterloo Cement Machinery Company, Waterloo, Iowa, for Concrete Mixing
Machines.

Hercules Powder Company, Hazleton, Pennsylvania, for Progressive
Cultivation and Trench Digging by Dynamite.

International Harvester Company of America, Chicago, Illinois, for
Tractors and Farm Machinery.

George M. Wright, owner of Indian Hill Farm, Worcester, Massachusetts,
for Holstein Cattle, Dairy Methods and Poultry Raising.

John W. Odlin, Publicity Department, Wright Wire Company, Worcester,
Massachusetts, Wire Fencing.

C.P. Dadant, Editor American Bee Journal, Hamilton, Illinois, Bee
Culture.

The Sharpies Separator Company, West Chester, Pennsylvania, for
Milking Machines and Cream Separators.

D. & A. Post Mold Company, Three Rivers, Michigan, for Concrete Fence
Posts.

A.A. Simpson, Indiana, Pennsylvania, for much data regarding crop
production and market values in that vicinity.

The Domestic Engineering Company, Dayton, Ohio, for Electric Light and
Power for Farms.

The Portland Cement Association, Chicago, Illinois, for Concrete
Buildings and Road Construction.

United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., for
Farmers' Bulletins covering the great range of subjects referred to
throughout the story.

The Country Gentleman, Philadelphia, Pa., for much helpful data on
general farming and stock raising.

K.C. Davis, Knapp School of Country Life, Nashville, Tenn., for a
final reading of the proof sheets.




CONTENTS


CHAPTER

    I. THE OLD HOMESTEAD

   II. A DAY'S WORK

  III. A RAINY DAY

   IV. DRAINING THE POND

    V. SELLING TURTLES

   VI. SELLING SAND

  VII. THE NEW AUNT

 VIII. THE SALE

   IX. POWER AND BANKING

    X. RUNNING WATER

   XI. TONY

  XII. THE DAIRY HOUSE

 XIII. VISITORS

  XIV. RUTH AND THE STRAW STACK

   XV. NEW METHODS

  XVI. RUTH AND JERRY

 XVII. FILLING THE INCUBATOR

XVIII. THE NEW IMPLEMENTS

  XIX. THE STORM

   XX. GOOD ROADS

  XXI. FILLING THE SILO

 XXII. THE FAIR

XXIII. CHRISTMAS AT BROOKSIDE FARM

 XXIV. COST ACCOUNTING




ILLUSTRATIONS



The Afternoon was Spent Examining the Buildings and Looking
Over the Plans for the New Barn

The Old Homestead

"Well, Son, Let's Get Down to Business. I See You're Wise
All Right to the Value of that Pit"

Bees are a Profitable Side Line

The Tractor Will do the Work of Five Men and Five Teams

Ditch Digging by Dynamite

One-Half the Herd

The Electric Milker

Comfortable Sanitary Stalls

Small, Self-Loading, Kerosene Driven, Concrete Mixers

Every Boy that Ran Away from the Farm and Many that are
Still There can Tell of the Days Wasted on Repairs to
Wooden Fences and Cleaning Out Fence Rows

Extra Profits are not the Only Things a Farmer Gets from a Herd
of Well Bred Dairy Cows

Good Seed Well Planted Lays the Foundation for a Profitable
Crop

A Well-Managed Flock of Poultry Will Return Good Profits

The Side Delivery Rake Fluffs up the Hay and Lets the Sun
do Its Work Quickly

The Self-Loader Makes Possible the Quick Storage of Properly
Cured Hay and Saves Tons of Man-Lifting Power

The Electric-Driven Laundry

Well-Built Concrete Roads Bring the Markets and Your Neighbors
Nearer

Transferring the Green Corn Crop from Field to Silo




I.

THE OLD HOMESTEAD


The late afternoon sun shone full upon a boy who was perched on the
top of an old rail fence forming the dividing line between the farm
that spread out before him and the one over which he had just passed.

It was early March. The keen wind as it whirled past him, whipping the
branches of the tree together and carrying away clouds of dried leaves
from behind the fence rows, penetrated the thin clothes he wore--but
instead of making him shiver, it seemed only to add to his pleasure,
for he removed his cap and ran his fingers through his damp hair.

The boy was slender and scarcely looked the eighteen years to which he
laid claim. He had curly sandy hair, a freckled face and penetrating
blue eyes. His clothes were new, but of rather poor material and ill-
fitting, scarcely protecting him from the cutting wind. Because of his
short legs and arms, his coat sleeves and trousers, cut for the
average boy, were too long for him and were much wrinkled.

He had climbed the last and steepest hill lying between the town and
his grandfather's farm--the ancestral home of the Williams family,
which was now, for a time at least, to be his home. Since early
morning he had bumped over the rough frozen roads between his home in
a distant village and the county seat, which was situated some two
miles to the west, and from which he had just walked.

He had expected to find his grandfather or his Uncle Joe waiting for
him; in this he was disappointed, and as the sun was getting along
toward mid-afternoon, he had picked up his worn suitcase and set off
through the town by a route that he knew would bring him to a short-
cut over the hills.

Despite the wind, he sat for some minutes, cap in hand, while he
looked out over the familiar scenes. There was not one foot of ground
in the one hundred and sixty acre farm that spread out fan-shape
before him which was not familiar. Here he had spent many happy
vacations in summers past. The last two years he had attended the
State College, taking the course in agriculture, and had worked in a
grocery store in the village during the summer vacations, but this
work had been distasteful to him--he missed the freedom of outdoor
life, especially the birds and animals so plentiful on the farm. So
this year, as his father could not afford to have him complete the
course, he had asked permission to go on a farm. His two years in the
State College had opened his eyes to modern methods of farming and the
use of Portland cement for farm buildings, and he wanted a chance to
try them out.

His father had hesitated at first in giving his consent, not because
he did not wish him to be in the open country, but because he felt,
now that he had reached the age of eighteen, he should be able to earn
money and direct his attention toward permanent employment, and he
could not think of farming as a business with so many other
opportunities at hand. A letter from his Uncle Joe, saying that he had
purchased the old farm, and would like to have Bob help him with the
work on his newly acquired property, had settled the matter, and, as
his uncle was anxious to make an early start, he had left home at
once.

He could not help noticing, as he gazed at the panorama before him,
the dilapidated appearance of the buildings and tumbled-down fences
half hidden by rank growths that confronted him on every side, but
this, for the moment, was of passing interest.

Across the valley to the east, in the twenty-five acres of woods, he
had once found the nest of a great white owl, and there on "Old Round
Top," as the steep hill directly opposite him was called, they had
overturned a wagon-load of hay one summer with him on top. He even
remembered the thrill he had received as he went flying through the
air, and how they had all laughed when he landed unhurt on a hay cock
some distance down the hill, just clear of the overturned wagon. Then
in the valley, at the foot of the hill, stood the old cider mill where
neighbors for miles around would bring their apples in the late summer
for cider-making. Here, straw in mouth, he and the neighbors' boys lay
prone on their stomachs on the great beams and sucked their fill of
the freshly squeezed cider as it flowed down the smooth grooves in the
planks to the waiting barrels below.

Beyond the cider mill was the old orchard, with its Rainbow and Sheep-
nose apple trees; then the garden in one corner of which grew black
currants and yellow raspberry bushes; and near by the low red brick
smoke-house, from which many a piece of dried beef had been slyly
removed to stay his hunger between meals.

Just beyond was the white farmhouse, nestling among the apple trees,
the front to the west and facing on the lane that led up to a farm
above. The house had a one-story ell on the end toward him, containing
the kitchen and pantry--this ell projected back almost to the
smokehouse. On the opposite side, but hidden from his view, there was
a wide porch running the full length of house and ell, and in the
angle formed by the porch, stood the well with its home-made pump.

The water from this well, he recalled, had a peculiar mineral taste,
with a strong flavor of sulphur--a taste he did not like. He had never
been so tired that he would not go to the spring up on the side of
"Old Round Top" for a pail of water, rather than drink from this well.
Back of the house, but within the enclosure formed by the picket
fence, was the wood and tool shed--while just beyond stood the old-
fashioned bank barn and other farm buildings. There was a short steep
hill just beyond the barn, down which the lane wound to a mill pond
below. An old sawmill with an undershot water-wheel stood at the
extreme south-east corner of the farm, diagonally opposite.

[Illustration with caption: THE OLD HOMESTEAD] Of all the places on
which his gaze rested, this mill and pond held the most treasured
recollections. It was in this pond ten years ago his father had taught
him to swim. Here, too, the neighboring farmers brought their sheep
each spring to be washed--always a holiday and frolic for the boys.

Like many other farms in this section of Western Pennsylvania, the
buildings were set so that the barn stood between the house and the
main road, making the approach to the house past the barn and through
the barnyard. For the first time, this awkward arrangement was
apparent to him; he wondered why the buildings had been thus located,
and facing northwest.

He replaced his cap, swung his suitcase over the fence, jumped down to
the frozen ground and set off down the hill. As he trudged along,
picking his way over the rough ground, the parting words of his father
came to him: "Make yourself useful, Bob, and your Uncle Joe, I'm sure,
will pay you all you're worth, and while I'd rather have you become a
merchant, still if you find you like the farm, you may stay with your
Uncle Joe." It was not so much the prospect of making money as the
chance of being in the open air among the things that he loved that
caused him to whistle a lively tune as he crossed the fields toward
the house.

The one over which he was now passing, he observed, had been planted
in winter wheat, and that just beyond, at the edge of the meadow, was
the young orchard well grown and badly in need of pruning. The route
he had taken soon brought him out into the lane at the foot of the
hill, near the cider mill, where he stopped to drink of the cool sap
that flowed into a large tin pail, from one of the sugar-maple trees
under whose branches the mill stood. How good it tasted to the thirsty
boy, as he drank slowly from a long-handled dipper that someone had
conveniently left hanging on the tree. When he had quenched his
thirst, he picked up his suitcase again, resting it on one shoulder,
and continued up the lane to the house.

"Hello, grandma!" he shouted, as he dropped his luggage on the porch
and hurried forward to meet her as she emerged from the kitchen door,
a steaming kettle of vegetables in her hand.

"Why, Bob, where'd you come from?" she exclaimed, setting the kettle
down and kissing him.

"I looked for grandfather and Uncle Joe when I got off the bus in
town, but I couldn't see them anywhere, so I walked out," he replied.

"Why, I'm sure they expected to meet you, Bob," she replied, "but the
roads are so rough, I suppose they were late. They took some grain to
the mill and would have to wait for it to be ground, and they may have
been delayed there--but you haven't told me yet how all the folks
are."

"Oh, they're all pretty well," he replied; "but tell me, when is Uncle
Joe to be married?"

"Some time in April, I believe," she replied. "Do you know you're to
be his chore boy this summer?"

"Yes, father told me--it will be lots of fun. Just think--no more
working all cooped up in a store like the last two summers," he
replied enthusiastically.

"But it won't be all fun, you know, Bob. Your Uncle Joe has bought the
farm, although it's not all paid for yet, and I imagine he'll keep you
pretty busy--if I know Joe," she added.

"Let me get you some water, grandma," he said a moment later, seeing
her pick up the tin water-pail; "I'll start right in now and get my
hand in," he laughed.

"You always were a hustler, Bob, even if you don't grow very fast,"
she said, looking at his over-large clothes, as he left the kitchen.

"I hope your Uncle Joe will remember that you're not grown and can't
do a man's work, even if you're willing to try," she said on his
return, as she watched him set the pail of water on the kitchen table.

"Why, I'm eighteen now, grandma, and weigh one hundred and ten
pounds," he answered stoutly.

"Well, this is a big farm, Bob, and it's gotten pretty well run down
in the last few years with your Uncle Joe out West and your
grandfather feeling too poorly to do much more than look after the
crops," she said.

"Are there big fortunes to be found in the West, grandma?" he asked a
moment later.

"No bigger than right here, Bob," she replied. "It's only a matter of
work, and I'm beginning to believe that after all it is as much a
matter of managing properly as working hard. Do you know that your
grandfather and I are going to move to town as soon as your Uncle Joe
gets married?"

"Why, no, I didn't--who'll look after things here when you go away?"
asked Bob.

"Oh, your new aunt will see to that," she replied. "I hope you'll like
her, Bob."

"Who is she and what does she look like?" he inquired with boyish
eagerness.

"She used to be a school teacher and lived with us while she taught
our school," she replied; "that's how your Uncle Joe met her. She has
plenty of good looks--too many, I sometimes think, for a farmer's
wife--and she is a real New England Yankee woman, who doesn't know how
to milk cows."

"How could any one be too good-looking to be a farmer's wife,
grandma?" laughed Bob. "Why should good looks keep her from being
successful?"

"Well, you see, Bob, nice white hands are generally spoiled by rough
work," said the old lady.

"But why will she have to do the rough work when she comes here?"
persisted Bob.

"Oh, I guess she won't have any to do--at least, that's what your
Uncle Joe says," replied his grandmother with a haughty toss of her
head. "That's what he's got you down on the farm for."

"Oh," said Bob, dryly, "and so that's why he was so extremely anxious
for me to come."

"Yes, that's why, Bob--you might as well know sooner as later, that
you're going to be a pretty busy boy this summer. Your Uncle Joe is so
big and strong that he never gets tired and doesn't know when to quit,
and he expects every one else to work just as hard and as long as he
does. Besides," she added, "I don't think he'll want HIS wife to spoil
her nice white hands."

"What's her name?" inquired Bob, not in the least worried by his
grandmother's gloomy predictions.

"Betsy Atwood--but your uncle calls her Bettie," replied his
grandmother.

"Aunt Bettie," repeated Bob. "A pretty name!"

"H'm!" sniffed his grandmother. "I'm certainly glad you like it, and I
hope you'll like her as well--it will help to make the work seem
easier to you."

"Why, there's grandfather and Uncle Joe now," said Bob a moment later,
as he glanced through the kitchen window toward the barn, and catching
up his cap he rushed out to greet them.

Joe Williams was a typical farmer, tall, deep-chested and straight as
an arrow. He stood six feet in his stockings and weighed two hundred
and ten pounds, and could toss a barrel of salt on the tailboard of a
wagon without losing his happy smile. He was twenty-seven years old,
and there was not a farmer in the county who could beat him at feats
of strength or endurance, and few indeed who could keep pace with him.
He had black hair and blue eyes. Books had little attraction for him--
he loved to be in the open, for which his great size and strength
seemed to fit him. He had received little education beyond the country
school, unless could be counted the two years he had spent working on
farms in the great West, where he probably would have stayed had it
not been for the brown eyes of Bettie Atwood and an offer from his
father, now old and failing in health, to sell him the old place at
his own terms.

"Hello, Bob!" he called as his nephew came forward, "sorry we missed
you. The bus driver said you'd left on foot for the farm when you
didn't see us around. How've you been lately?"

"Oh, I'm all right," replied Bob.

"Hello, grandfather!" he called, as he went round to the side of the
wagon to greet his grandfather.

"You don't seem to grow much, Bob," he laughed, as he shook hands.
"Cooped up too much in that grocery store--you need the open air of
the country to stretch you out. Just look at your Uncle Joe there--see
what the country has done for him."

"Oh, I'll grow all right, grandfather. I like the country and the
open-air life, too, and father says I may take up farming work if I
want to."

The team was soon put away, and shortly after supper Bob, too sleepy
to keep his eyes open, went to bed.




II

A DAY'S WORK


"Bob! Bob! Time to get up and do your chores."

The sleepy boy rolled over, rubbed his eyes and sat up, trying to
remember where he was and who was calling him; then he recognized the
voice of his uncle, and jumped quickly out of bed.

"All right, Uncle Joe, I'm coming," he answered, as he felt around in
the dark for his clothes, for he had neglected to provide himself with
matches to light the oil lamp that stood near by on the dresser.

His clothes were simple, and getting up before dawn was no new
experience for him. A few moments later he hurried down to the
kitchen, where his uncle, who had just finished stirring the kitchen
fire, was filling the tea-kettle.

"Well!--are you up for all day, Bob?" he inquired cheerily.

"I will be as soon as I get awake," he answered, as he started for the
rain barrel for water to wash.

As the water in the well was hard, rain water was used for washing,
except in winter, when the barrels were frozen solidly. The early
spring rains had filled the barrels again, but as the night had been
cold, ice had frozen over the top. His uncle had been to the barrel
ahead of him and broken the ice, so he dipped up the basin full of
water, and placing it on a bench on the porch, washed his face and
hands.

Above the wash bench, summer and winter, hung the roller towel, and
near by the mirror and family horn comb. In the dark the mirror was of
doubtful use, but with a few well-directed strokes of the comb he
managed to get a semblance, at least, of neatness to his hair. He
shivered a little as he finished--just as his uncle appeared, milk
pails and lantern in hand.

"I want you to do the milking from now on, Bob, for it's not the kind
of work a woman should do," said his uncle, and handing him the pails,
they started for the barn.

"You're right, Uncle Joe," replied Bob. "I always milked our cow at
home so mother wouldn't have to do it; besides, it doesn't take so
very long."

Bob had been taught to take good care of the family cow--a well-bred
Guernsey, whose stable had a good cement floor and was neatly
whitewashed. Once or twice a week he would curry-comb and brush her
from nose to tail. Nothing gave him greater pride than to have his
father bring some one unexpectedly into the stable to look at his
charge and comment on the clean manner in which both stable and cow
were kept. His mother sold the milk they did not need for their own
use, and had no trouble in getting two cents a quart more than the
regular price--partly on account of the cow being so well bred and
giving rich milk, but principally on account of the reputation the
clean stable had made in the village.

The cow barn that Bob now entered was built under a portion of the
main barn, adjacent to the thrashing floor, and was dark, even in the
daylight. The earthen floor was foul with neglect. The cows, instead
of being secured in separate stalls with stanchions, were chained up
in a row to a long, old-fashioned manger.

Upon entering, Bob's uncle hung up the lantern; then, seeing Bob look
around and hesitate, asked:

"What are you looking for, Bob?"

"I was looking for a fork to clean the stable. I always clean the
stable and brush off the cow at home before milking," he replied.

"Well, I guess you're a little late to start that here," laughed his
uncle. "Never mind the floor; we'll back the wagon in here after
breakfast and give it a good cleaning."

"All right, Uncle Joe; but where's the brush?" asked Bob.

"Brush! What brush?" asked his uncle.

"Why, don't you brush off the cows each morning before you milk them?"
asked Bob. "Father always insisted that I brush Gurney each morning."

"Well, your father's not a farmer and you've only one cow, while we
have eight, and, besides, I've lots of other work to do without curry-
combing cows," replied his uncle in a sarcastic tone, angered at Bob's
reference to his father's greater knowledge of farm work.

"Better hurry up with your milking, Bob, while I feed the horses," he
added, as he left him staring at the cows.

He could not remember ever having seen such dirty cows or so dirty a
stable before. Then he suddenly thought that he had always visited the
farm in the summer time, when the cattle were kept in the fields and
milked in the open barn yard.

He finished the milking as best he could, and was not surprised to
find that instead of getting forty quarts from the eight cows, he
received only fifteen quarts--about three times as much as he got from
Gurney alone. He now remembered the answer he once heard his father
give a visitor at Gurney's stable.

"But, Mr. Williams," the visitor had said, "a purebred cow must be
considerably more expensive in upkeep than an ordinary one."

"That's where you're mistaken," his father had replied, "for a well-
bred cow eats no more than a common one--in fact, Gurney eats less,
and the difference in the amount and quality of the milk soon pays for
the difference in the first cost. Then, there's the pleasure that Bob
gets out of the care he gives to an animal that is worth while, and
assuredly that's something not to be lightly lost sight of."

Dawn was breaking when Bob finished. On the way to the house he met
his uncle coming out of the yard, a huge pail of swill for the pigs in
each hand.

"Thought I'd feed the pigs for you this morning," he said, as Bob set
down his milk pails and held the gate open for his uncle to pass
through. "It will take you a day or two to get your hand in," he
added.

Bob made no reply, but he noticed the swill was full of broken ice,
like the rain barrel from which he had taken the water to wash that
morning, and he was wondering how much good a cold breakfast like that
would do even for a pig.

He carried the milk pails into the kitchen, where he found his
grandmother busy preparing breakfast. "Shall I take the milk to the
cellar?" he asked, as he set the pails on the floor to rest his arms.

"No, thank you, Bob; I usually strain it here in the kitchen before
taking it down," she replied; "but you may feed the calves--that's
their warm milk there by the stove. You'll find four of them in the
orchard, back of the smokehouse. Divide the milk among them, and hurry
back to breakfast."

Bob disappeared with the milk, but was back in a few minutes. The tin
wash basin was put into service again--this time hot water from the
boiling tea kettle took the chill off, and in a few minutes, he joined
his uncle who, having already washed, had that moment seated himself
at the breakfast table.

"Will you feed the chickens for me, Bob?" asked his grandmother, as he
rose from the table after breakfast. "You'll find some shell corn in a
feed box on the thrashing floor. Give them two measures."

"Come around to the wagon shed when you get through with feeding the
chickens, Bob," called his uncle, as he started for the barn. "I'll
get the team and we'll clean out the cow stable to-day."

Bob filled the small wooden box he found in the feed bin, then
stepping out into the barnyard, he called the chickens around him. He
could not help observing what a nondescript lot of chickens they were
--not a purebred among them; besides, he noticed many were old, and
some had frozen feet and combs. No wonder, he thought, as he glanced
at the poorly built hen house that faced the east instead of south--a
lean-to built against the side of the barn, with only one small
window, and that one on the north end, while the cracks between the
upright boards, of which the coop was constructed, were not even
covered by strips.

With these fowls he contrasted his own prize-winning white leghorns,
with their well-built and ventilated pen, with its two large windows
to the south. He wondered how long they would have averaged four eggs
a day for the eight hens through the entire winter, if he had fed them
with only cold grain instead of carefully prepared feed, and had kept
them in such a cheerless home. No wonder his grandmother, who got the
money from the sale of the eggs, said chickens didn't pay, and that
the few eggs the hens did lay in the winter were usually frozen before
they could be collected.

He now joined his uncle and they began the annual cleaning of the cow
stable and barnyard. The stable was not hard work, although the long
corn stalks that were tramped deep into the floor were troublesome and
required much labor to pry loose. They finished the cleaning of the
cow stable by noon, but when they started on the barnyard in the
afternoon they found it was frozen almost solid, so they made slow
headway and Bob's arms and back ached from the unaccustomed heavy
work.

"When shall I quit to do the milking?" he inquired, as he noticed the
sun getting low.

"Oh, we'll be knocking off pretty soon," was his uncle's indefinite
answer.

It was nearly six o'clock and getting dark when his uncle finally
decided they had done enough work for one day.

"Guess you'd better hustle, Bob," he said. "I didn't notice it was so
late. Your grandmother will wait supper for you."

Bob jumped down stiffly from the seat of the wagon and, after cleaning
his shoes, went to the house, as his uncle had directed, and washed
up.

"Are you tired?" asked his grandmother, as he came into the kitchen
where she was busy cooking by lamp light. "Your Uncle Joe's starting
right in to have you do all the work on the farm in a day; he should
have let you stop an hour ago to do the milking."

Bob made no reply. He took his pails and lantern and started for the
barn. His hands were stiff and blistered from using the fork all day,
and it was with difficulty that he finished his task in the ill-
smelling and badly ventilated barn. His back ached, too, as he carried
the pails to the house.

"Why were you so long?" asked his uncle impatiently, as Bob entered.
"Your grandmother wouldn't let us eat till you came in, so I fed the
calves and pigs for you while we were waiting."

"At home, Uncle Joe," replied Bob, as they seated themselves at the
table, "we always milk at five o'clock and don't let anything else
interfere with it. Father says a cow should be milked early and
regularly."

"Well, Bob, your father's not a farmer, and if he wants you to quit in
the middle of the afternoon to milk your cow, you can do so, but we'll
milk ours after the day's work's done," was the stern answer.

"Probably that's the reason Gurney gives nearly as much milk as any
three of yours," replied Bob quietly, to which remark his uncle made
no reply.




III

A RAINY DAY


"Bob," said his uncle one rainy Saturday morning, a week later, "it's
such a bad day we can't do anything outdoors, so we'd better sharpen
up the tools; there's a lot of them that need grinding."

"All right," said Bob, and he got a can of water for the grindstone--
an ancient model, turned by hand.

His uncle gathered up the tools and piled them beside the stone. There
were two double-bitted axes and one pole axe, two brush hooks, three
mowing scythes, a hatchet, a meat cleaver, half a dozen knives, both
long and short--to say nothing of a drawing knife, some chisels and
planes, which were added to the pile as an afterthought.

Bob looked dubiously at the tools as his uncle deposited them near at
hand.

"Are we going to sharpen them all, Uncle Joe?" he inquired, as he took
hold of the handle and set the stone turning.

"Oh, this is only a short job," laughed his uncle, as he picked up a
dull axe and pressed the bit so heavily against the stone that it
stopped.

"Why, what's the matter, Bob--not tired before you get started, are
you?" he laughed.

Bob made no reply. He needed all his strength to turn the stone. After
a few minutes' work against his uncle's weight, he was compelled to
quit.

"Can't we oil or grease it up or do something to make it turn easier,
Uncle Joe?" he asked as he straightened up.

"Bah, who ever heard of oiling a grindstone?" answered his uncle,
throwing some water on the bearings, which caused a lot of rust to
work out at the ends.

"I guess you'd like to go fishing to-day, instead of working?" he
observed.

"No, Uncle Joe, I'm willing to work," replied Bob, "but you don't know
how hard this old stone turns."

"Oh, I don't, don't I?" said his uncle. "Well, I turned this stone,
Bob, before you were born, and your father turned it before me."

"And you never put any oil or grease on it all that time?" inquired
Bob.

"Of course not," said his uncle, "only elbow grease. We boys always
had enough of that to keep the stone running in those days," he
continued with a sarcastic smile.

"Well, there might have been an excuse in those days, Uncle Joe, for
using a hand-power grindstone, but there certainly is none in these
days, with water power, electricity and gasoline," he added, between
breaths, as he began tugging away again at the handle.

"If you wouldn't waste your energy talking nonsense and turn faster,
we would get done sooner," said his uncle bearing down harder than
ever.

Bob stopped turning and stood up as straight as his aching back would
allow him, and looking his uncle square in the eyes, said:

"Suppose you turn a while, Uncle Joe, and I'll hold the axe."

"No, you just keep on turning--you don't know how to grind an axe,"
replied his uncle; "besides, that's the boy's job."

"Perhaps you could teach me how it's done, while you're turning," said
Bob, not offering to continue.

"That's only fair, Joe," said his grandfather, coming up suddenly
behind them and overhearing what was said. "The old stone does seem to
turn harder than ever these days."

"Well, I'll show you how easy it turns," said his uncle, starting the
stone spinning, but looked up quickly a moment later as it suddenly
slowed down to a dead stop, for his father, instead of Bob, was
holding the axe against it.

"Go on, Joe; don't stop; it's only a boy's job," he laughed, as he
bore down so hard on the axe that the stone could not be started.

"Where are you going, Bob?" asked his uncle, as Bob started in the
direction of the barn.

"I'm going to the wagon shed, Uncle Joe, to get some axle grease and
see if we can't make the stone turn easier."

The metal plates covering the bearings were removed, and the caked
rust pried out from between the rollers, for the stone had been
mounted on small cast-iron wheels or rollers, but the wheels had been
allowed to become rusted and finally had ceased to revolve.

When the rust had all been cleaned out and the wheels removed and
cleaned, they were well greased and replaced.

"Now try it, Bob," said his grandfather, smiling; "it's a poor rain
that doesn't bring some good."

The stone now spun around easily in the hands of the willing boy, and
by noon all the tools had been ground, including some additional ones
that his grandfather, seeing the work going so fast, had added to the
pile. When all were finished, Bob wiped them off with a greasy rag,
while his grandfather stood watching him keenly.

"You'll make a good farmer some day, Bob," he said a little later,
"for I see you use your head as well as your muscle. All my life I've
been grinding farm tools, but I never once greased them to keep them
from getting rusty, and they were mostly rusty, too, when I wanted to
use them," he added with a dry smile.

"How'd you like to have the afternoon off, Bob, to fish?" asked his
uncle after dinner, looking at the rain.

"Fine, Uncle Joe! Perhaps I could catch a mess for supper," the boy
replied, and without waiting for any further suggestions started for
the woodshed to get his rod and line.

He was soon sitting on the end of the log carriage under the shelter
of the saw-mill roof, his line dangling into the water of the forebay,
waiting for a bite. He had been seated only a few moments when his
attention was attracted by a small automobile bouncing over the deep-
rutted road, a few yards to the south of the mill. When it got nearly
opposite, one of the rear tires, with a loud report, blew out, and it
came to a sudden stop. Two men got out of the car, but after looking
up at the sky decided to wait until the shower was over before making
the repairs. So, turning up their coat collars, they ran over to the
shelter of the mill.

They did not seem to notice Bob as they came up a plank at the
opposite end, but sat down on a log with their back to him. As they
seated themselves, one of the men took out his cigar case and passed
it to the other.

"We'd better be careful about smoking in a saw mill, John, don't you
think?" remarked the other, as he hesitated to take the proffered
cigar.

"Oh, that's all right, Al," said his friend. "Just be careful where
you throw the match."

"This must be a pretty old mill, John," said the one called "Al," a
few moments later, as, his cigar lighted, he gazed around at the
structure.

"Well, it's been here for some time, that's sure," his friend replied.

"Don't they ever use it any more? Don't look as though they have cut
any lumber here in years," remarked Al.

"No, the timber's pretty well cut down around here, Al, and one
doesn't haul it very far in these days of portable steam mills. In the
old days, you know, they hauled the tree to the mill; nowadays, they
take the mill to the tree. It's the modern idea."

"But I should think they would use the power for other things," his
friend persisted. "For one thing, the water would be able to run a
small generator and supply the farm with electric lights."

"Electric light! Ha! Ha! Joe Williams using electric lights on his
farm--that's a good one, Al."

"Well, why not?" demanded his friend. "Electricity is not a new thing,
even in the country, and there certainly are enough uses for power on
a farm that would pay for a plant in a very short time."

"Yes, but you don't know Joe Williams, Al," persisted his friend.

"Well, who is he, then, that he never heard of electricity?" demanded
Al.

"Oh, he's heard of electricity all right; but you see he's not
progressive--he has no 'git up and git,' as they say around here. Of
course, he expects to find electric lights and concrete sidewalks in
town, but electric lights on his farm and good roads from here to town
would never enter his head," was the reply.

"Has he always lived here? Doesn't he ever get far enough away from
home to know what the rest of the world is doing, or is he just plain
lazy?" asked his friend.

"Neither, Al. In fact, he spent two years on the big farms in the
West, and I had hoped he would wake up our farmers with new ideas when
he came back and bought the old homestead. But I've been disappointed.
He's one of those powerful men, who thinks that farming is a matter of
physical strength rather than thoughtful planning. He doesn't seem to
see the advantage of headwork. True, it's going to take a lot of hard
work to redeem this old place with its dilapidated buildings and
broken-down fences, but headwork will help a lot. Why, do you know,
Al, the acreage wasted by rail fences on this farm alone would raise
enough corn each year to send a boy to college."

"Yes, and what's more," he continued, "here's an old pond full of the
richest soil in the whole county--soil that's been washed down from
the fertile fields for years--to say nothing of the drainage from
three big barns; and what does it produce?--nothing. Do you know, if I
owned this farm, I'd open the gates and let the water out, put in some
drain tile and plant this bottom land in corn. Why, when that corn got
ripe, you couldn't find a ladder long enough in the county to reach up
to the ears, the stalks would grow so high."

"Well, that would be some tall corn, John," laughed his friend, "but
I've no doubt it's just as you say--this bottom would raise fine corn.
Speaking of that, you ought to see some of the corn I've seen in the
bottom lands out in Illinois and Iowa, But what about electricity if
you do away with the dam?"

"Do you see those two beech trees down there, near the fence where the
brook cuts in between the two steep banks?" asked John pointing.

"Yes, I do," said his friend.

"Well, do you notice how the banks approach each other at that point?
A thirty-or forty-foot dam built across there would back up the water
over an acre or two of ground in there--that land is unfit for
anything else--and it would give them all the water they'd need for
cutting ice in the winter and swimming in the summer; and as for
electricity, a little direct-connection unit run by gasoline and
setting in one corner of the garage, where it would be near at hand,
would do the trick nicely. You know, Al," he continued, "the trouble
with our farmers is they don't manage right. Now take Joe Williams
here for an example. Here's wasted water power; he's still turning the
old grind-stone by hand, and probably will all his life, unless
someone wakes him up. Then here's this good bottom land wasted. Why,
it was only last week he came in to see me at the bank to borrow a
thousand dollars--said he was going to get married and needed some
money to set himself up in housekeeping, as he's put all his money
into buying the farm. Said he's going to marry a woman who's used to a
little better than farm life, and, now that he's got his brother's boy
helping him, he would like to put on another team."

"Did you loan him the money, John?" asked his friend, keenly
interested.

"No, I didn't, Al. I told him I'd think it over. In fact, it was to
look things over that I came out here to-day," he replied.

"I don't know whether I mentioned to you, John," remarked his friend,
"but the Farmers' Mutual Life Insurance Company, which I represent, is
seeking all the farm loans they can find. We consider them the best
loans to-day."

"How's that, Al?" asked the banker.

"Well, it's like this. You loan a farmer a thousand dollars and in
nearly every case the money goes to improve the land, hence makes the
value that much greater. Then a wide-awake farmer generally wakes up
his neighbors and the value of all the farms goes up, which naturally
makes our risk less. We don't care how bad a farm may be run down,
John, if the farmer is a live one--one who has the 'git up and git,'
as you say--we'll advance him any reasonable amount of money to help
him. And that, by the way, brings me around to tell you why I dropped
off to see you this morning. We want to place some of our surplus
funds in farm loans in your section and would like to have your bank
handle them for us."

"Why, Al, that's fine. I've a small policy myself in your company, and
it's certainly good of you to pick out the First National to place
these loans. I'll be a real booster for your company now.

"But referring to wasted opportunities, Al, do you see that sand and
gravel pit over there on the other side of the pond? There's enough
sand and gravel there, I've no doubt, to supply this entire county
with concrete fence posts, silos, barns and all manner of buildings,
to say nothing of building fine concrete roads throughout the whole
county. And I'll tell you something more: Joe Williams hasn't waked up
to the fact that there's a railroad coming through about three miles
below his farm that will require thousands of yards of sand and gravel
for concrete bridges, and that this is the only sand and gravel pit
within a reasonable haul that's worth while. Why, do you know, Al, for
years and years they've been letting people drive in here and haul
away sand and gravel free of charge.

"You don't say!" exclaimed his friend.

"Yes, but speaking of concrete, Al, just think what a saving in
horseflesh a twenty-foot smooth concrete road all the way from here to
town would mean to these farmers--recent tests with a three-ton auto
truck show that while it could make only 3.6 miles per hour over dirt
roads, it could make twelve miles per hour over unsurfaced concrete
roads, which would represent in the United States a saving of nearly
two and one-half million dollars on auto-truck hauling alone, to say
nothing of horse-drawn vehicles--just think of it, Al. But there's
that old dirt road, same as it's been for years, hub deep with mud in
spring and winter, and so dusty in summer that there is no pleasure in
driving over it, and a dead loss in both time and money every time a
farmer drives over it."

"It's surely the roughest road I've ever traveled on, John," laughed
his friend, "and I've no doubt what you say is right. If farmers would
only take to using lead pencils and figure a little they would soon
discover where their losses are."

"You know the old way of repairing roads, Al. They dig the dirt out of
the gutters in the springtime and fill up the rut holes, and then the
next spring do the same thing over again, from 'generation to
generation,' as the good Book says. I'm satisfied myself," he
continued, "that our county will never go ahead until we begin putting
down good roads. I was telling our Commissioners only yesterday that
the First National Bank would guarantee the bond issue for any road-
building work they would undertake in any part of the county."

The two men sat in silence for a time, looking out at the rain. Then
they got up and started to walk to the other end of the mill.

"Why, hello, boy! Fishing?" remarked Al, as he noticed Bob for the
first time.

"Yes," replied Bob.

"Catching anything, are you?" asked the banker.

"Well, you never can tell what you can catch on a rainy day," the boy
replied slowly. "Uncle Joe greased the grindstone to-day for the first
time in its history."

"You don't say!" laughed the banker; "who put him up to that, I'd like
to know?"

Bob only grinned and remained silent.

"Well, it looks as though the rain were going to pass over," said the
banker a few minutes later, as he looked out at his stranded
automobile.

"What's your name, young man?" inquired the insurance man.

"Bob Williams," he replied.

"Oh, then you are Billy Williams' son, who's working here this
summer," said the banker. "Well, how does it happen that you're
fishing instead of working to-day, I'd like to know? Couldn't your
Uncle Joe find anything for you to do?"

"Yes, he did; but we greased the grindstone and got through at noon,"
Bob replied smiling.

"Well, he was square in letting you have the afternoon off after you
showed him how to save it," the banker replied. "Some time, Bob, when
you're in town, drop in and see me at the bank, and, by the way, if
you ever catch any turtles, bring them to me. I'll be glad to pay you
fifty cents each for all you can catch. I'm rather fond of a good
snapper."

"What are you going to do now?" inquired the insurance man, seeing Bob
winding up his fishing line.

"Guess I'll go up to the barn and look for some lumber to build a long
ladder," the boy replied grinning.

"Well, so long, Bob," said the insurance man with a smile. "Good luck
to you! I see you've good ears."




IV

DRAINING THE POND


It was quite evident to Bob the next morning that his uncle was
worrying about something; he was not only absent-minded, but he was
short and crusty and found fault with everything that Bob did.

It was Sunday, and after the chores were finished, Bob walked down
back of the barn and stood looking at the pond for quite a while,
pondering over what the banker and insurance man had said. Then he
walked over to the west slope which ran along the side of the small
hill where the house and barn stood and examined the contour of the
ground carefully.

"What are you trying to discover in the hog lot, Bob?" asked his
uncle, suddenly coming up behind him.

Bob's face was very serious, and he looked up at his uncle a moment
before replying.

"I was just wondering how much it would cost to hire a man to grade a
road up the side of this slope and get rid of the steep hill in front
of the barn."

"What an idea!" exclaimed his uncle. "Hire a man, indeed! You must be
crazy. We don't hire any men to work on this farm."

"Oh, yes, you do--you hired me, Uncle Joe."

"Well, but that's different, Bob," said his uncle, half smiling. "You
don't get paid."

"Oh, yes, I do, Uncle Joe. Father said you told him you'd pay me
whatever I was worth to you, and I'm willing to wait till you find
out, but I certainly expect to be paid money for my work."

"Your father shouldn't have told you I'd give you money. Of course,"
he added quickly, seeing Bob's face cloud, "I expect to get you some
new clothes in the fall."

"But father said I'm old enough now to buy my own clothes and that
this year he'd let me do it. You just keep account of how much work
and other things I do for you and pay me what I'm worth," Bob
answered.

"What do you mean about other things?" asked his uncle quickly.

"Well, for instance," said Bob, looking him squarely in the eyes, "you
want to borrow a thousand dollars at the First National Bank and they
haven't told you whether they'd give it to you or not."

"Who told you that?" demanded his uncle coloring.

"I don't care to say," replied Bob, "but it wasn't grandmother or
grandfather," he added quickly, to clear them of any suspicion of
having violated a confidence.

"Of course, they didn't," said his uncle. "They don't know anything
about it."

"I can tell you how you can get all the money you want--enough even to
build a new house and a new barn, with silos, new fences, and other
buildings. Also a concrete road from the house to the main road and
put a bathroom and electric lights in the house, too," Bob added.

"Have you gone crazy?" demanded his uncle, scarcely able to believe
his ears. "What nonsense are you talking this morning?"

"Well, you want to find out how it can be done, don't you?" he asked.

"Well, it won't do any harm to tell me," replied his uncle, suddenly
remembering his approaching marriage and how far his slender purse
would go toward fixing up the place and making it presentable to his
bride.

"Drain the pond and plant it in corn," said Bob triumphantly.

"What's that?" asked his uncle again, not sure he heard correctly.

"Drain the pond and plant it in corn," repeated Bob. "You won't have
to wait till you sell the corn, either, to get the money."

"How's that?" asked his uncle, interested in spite of himself.

"Well, all I can tell you is to do it and the First National Bank will
make the loan."

"Whoever heard of such a thing as planting corn in an old mill pond,"
scoffed his uncle.

"I did," replied Bob smiling.

"Who told you?" demanded his uncle, looking him over from head to
foot, for Bob with his ideas was getting to be more and more of a
puzzle to him every day as he upset the long-established farm
traditions.

"The president of the bank himself," declared Bob. "At least I
overheard him tell another man that he would."

"You overheard John White, president of the First National Bank,
discussing with someone else that I wanted to borrow a thousand
dollars? I don't believe it. John White wouldn't discuss my affairs
with anyone, especially when boys are standing around listening,"
vehemently declared his uncle.

"I wasn't standing around listening," said Bob blushing. "I was
fishing in the pond yesterday and I sat in the mill to get out of the
rain. I was fishing in the forebay, and they came in the mill to wait
until the rain was over and sat down and talked."

"What! They talked about me?" demanded his uncle.

"They talked about you and grandfather and all the other farmers
around here. Said you farmers never used your heads and let your farms
run down, when all you had to do was to show him you had some 'git up
and git' and you could have all the money you wanted."

"Well, if that's so, then why didn't he give it to me when I asked
him?" demanded his uncle.

"That was because he was disappointed in you. You've not yet shown any
'git up and git,'" replied Bob.

"What do you mean by 'git up and git'?" asked his uncle.

"Why, things like draining the pond and making it raise corn instead
of letting it lie there a waste; building a new road up to the barn
that won't be so steep you can't haul a load up or down; building new
wire fences with concrete posts and a new barn with silos, and--"

"Stop!" shouted his enraged uncle. "You're only talking to hear
yourself, Bob, and I'm not sure but you're talking to make fun of me.
I've a good notion to get a buggy whip and whale you for such
impertinence," he declared, his anger suddenly getting the better of
him. "No 'git up and git'! You know yourself I work from before
daylight until long after dark as it is. What does he expect me to
do?"

"Just work from six o'clock in the morning until six at night, then
you can spend the rest of the time planning how to improve the farm."

"Did he say that, Bob?" demanded his uncle, looking down at the
ground.

"Well, not just that way," replied Bob, "but that's what he meant. He
did say, though, he would make the loan if you could show him you knew
how to improve the farm, and he did say that if HE owned the farm the
first thing he'd do would be to drain the pond and plant it in corn.
It was his friend that suggested the electric lights--and he wasn't
joking, either, Uncle Joe," stoutly declared Bob with much
earnestness.

"Come over to the barn, Bob," said his uncle after considering the
matter a moment, "and tell me just what they said."

They went over and sat on the fence on the south side of the barn from
which point of vantage they could see the pond.

Bob now described in detail all that he had overheard, his uncle
interrupting from time to time to ask questions. When he had finished
they sat in silence for quite a while, then his uncle jumped down from
the fence and turning to Bob said:

"Come on, Bob, let's go' down and see how we can drain the old pond.
I'll make a bargain with you now. Your father told you I'd be willing
to pay you what you could earn. Well, that goes, and if you leave it
to me, I'll settle square with you in the fall, but there's one thing
I want you to do and that's to promise me you won't tell a soul about
this matter, and you and I'll make some of them around here sit up and
take notice before we get through."

"I'll promise," said Bob, "if you'll let me make one exception."

"Why, who's that?" asked his uncle, surprised at his answer.

"Aunt Bettie," said Bob.

His uncle was touched by the thought that Bob was not willing to
exclude his new aunt-to-be from participating in what would probably
be her greatest joy--the success of her husband.

"You don't know her yet, Bob," he said.

"No," replied Bob, "but grandmother described her to me and I know I'm
going to like her."

"I'm glad now I didn't go to church this morning, Bob--you've given me
an idea," remarked his uncle, as they walked along the breast of the
dam to the mill. "Well, here's the gate. I guess this is just as good
a time as any to start and they'll hardly consider it working on
Sunday if I open it now--so here goes," and up came the gate, and the
water began rushing out, sending the idle wheel spinning.

They sat in the mill until noon, listening to the dull rumble of the
wheel and watching the water getting lower and lower, while they
debated the best way of planting the bottom.

"I suppose we'd better go up and get our dinner, Bob," said his uncle,
suddenly coming out of a day dream into which he had fallen almost an
hour before.

"After dinner, Uncle Joe, may I come down and look for some turtles
for Mr. White? He said he'd pay me fifty cents apiece for all I could
catch."

"Did he?" replied his uncle. "I'll help you, Bob. We'll bring down a
barrel or two and a couple of rakes and have a regular turtle hunt,"
he laughed. "They can't get out of the sluiceway gate, there's a
wooden grating there."

As soon as they had finished their dinner, they put on some old
clothes, including rubber boots. Then Bob got the water barrels and
two rakes and put them on a stone drag, while his uncle harnessed up
old Frank. They rode down the hill to the pond and near the spillway
they unhitched the horse and tied him to a tree. The water had fallen
so much already that there were little shallow pools scattered all
over the bottom of the pond, and in some of these they could already
see the heads of surprised turtles sticking out. They took their rakes
and waded out to one of these pools. The bottom of the pond was so
soft they sank nearly up to their boot tops. Bob, who was the first to
arrive at the pool, drew his rake across the shallow water and a big
struggling snapping turtle was overturned and dragged out.

"There's a big one, Uncle Joe," he exclaimed, as he drew the turtle
from the water.

"All right, Bob, I've got him," said his uncle, grasping the turtle by
the tail. "Now look for another while I put this one in the barrel."

"Hurry, Uncle Joe; I've a big one here," he called, and his uncle came
splashing back through the mud as fast as he could to secure the
prize.

Two more were gotten from this pool and then they moved on to another.
The second pool contained four, and as soon as they had them out of
the water they dropped their rakes and grasping a tail in each hand
they waded through the mud to the shore.

"Say, Uncle Joe, there must be a lot of 'em in there. I guess Mr.
White will be surprised when he sees them all."

"Why, Bob, you surely won't take them all in at once," said his uncle,
starting to pry something out of the mud that proved to be a turtle
still larger than any they had yet found.

"Why not?" said Bob. "He didn't say bring in one or two--he just said
he'd pay fifty cents each for all I could catch; so I'm going to take
them all at once, before he changes his mind about them. Maybe after
he's eaten three or four he won't be willing to buy any more."

"Three or four, Bob," said his uncle, "why, I really believe we'll get
a barrel full."

"All the better," said Bob, as he scraped out another big one from
behind an old log. "They're in here thick as thieves."

It was nearly sundown when they finished the hunt and by that time
most of the boys in the neighborhood had learned that the water was
being drained from the pond and that a turtle hunt was on and had come
down to see the fun.

They were astonished at the number of turtles they found, for after
giving every boy one, they had two barrels full and eight big turtles
beside.

"How many have you got, Bob?" asked his uncle, as they hitched up the
horse and started for the house.

"Sixty-three, Uncle Joe, counting the big one."

"Why, that'll be over thirty dollars," said his uncle thoughtfully,
"but I told you they were yours, Bob; you suggested the idea and I'll
stick to it."

"Well, it only goes to show," replied Bob, "that Mr. White was right.
We've lots of resources we're neglecting to develop."

When they reached the barnyard they put the turtles in the corn crib
until morning, for they didn't have enough empty water barrels for
them to swim in. They then went into the house and got rid of their
muddy clothes.

"Well, I'm glad I lived long enough to see the old pond drained,"
remarked Bob's grandmother at supper that night. "I always said it was
a great nuisance, as well as a waste of good bottom land--now that
there's no more logs to be sawed. But you shouldn't have done it on
Sunday, Joe; you should have waited until to-morrow."




V

SELLING TURTLES


A little after nine o'clock the following morning, John White,
president of the First National Bank, and his friend, Alfred Dow,
superintendent of agencies of the Farmers' Mutual Life Insurance
Company, of New York City, walked up Sixth Avenue from the banker's
home and turned into Philadelphia Street. They were engaged in earnest
conversation and had reached the bank before they noticed a farm wagon
with a boy perched on the driver's seat, standing near the curb.

"Where do you want me to deliver your turtles, Mr. White?" called the
boy, and the men turned to look at the speaker.

"Why, hello, Bob!" exclaimed the banker. "Did you get me a turtle
already?" Then turning to his friend, he remarked, "I can now give you
that promised turtle dinner, Al. How many did you catch, Bob?" he
asked, coming over to the wagon.

"Sixty-three," replied Bob, "but I kept one for myself."

"What's that you're saying?" asked the astonished banker. "Sixty-three
turtles for me?"

"No, only sixty-two for you, Mr. White; I kept one for myself,"
replied Bob smiling.

"But, Bob, what would I do with sixty-two turtles? I couldn't eat that
many in ten years." "Well, you didn't say you'd eat them," said Bob
continuing to smile. "You only said you'd pay fifty cents each for all
I could catch and bring to you."

"That's right, Bob; he did say that," interrupted Mr. Dow, enjoying
the situation. "I'll back you, Bob. He made a verbal contract with you
for all you could catch. I heard him say so myself."

"But, great guns, Al, what will I do with so many turtles?" asked the
banker, looking hopelessly from one to the other.

"I'll tell you what," said his friend still laughing; "our company's
going to give a dinner in Pittsburgh day after tomorrow to our Western
Pennsylvania agents. I've been looking for a novelty for the dinner
and this will do fine. We'll go into the bank and call up the Fort
Henry Hotel and talk with the manager. We'll sell him the turtles and
you come down and have dinner with us and meet our men."

They were gone about twenty minutes, and both were laughing when they
returned.

"You win, Bob," said the banker.

"All right," laughed the happy boy. "Where do you want them delivered
and who'll count them?"

"Take them over to the express office, and I'll take your word for the
count, Bob. Tell them I'll send over the shipping directions later."

"How about the grain sacks?" asked Bob. "The turtles are mine, but the
grain sacks belong to Uncle Joe, and I'll have to charge you extra for
them unless you guarantee that they'll be returned."

"I'll guarantee to have them returned," said the banker, "but tell me,
Bob, how in the world did you catch sixty-three turtles since Saturday
afternoon?"

"Uncle Joe drained the pond yesterday," replied Bob, smiling back at
them as he started for the express office.

A half hour later he walked into the bank and stepping up to the
cashier's window asked for the president.

"He's in a conference in the directors' room," replied the cashier.
"Are you Bob Williams?"

"Yes," he replied.

"Come this way," he said. "The president left word to have you shown
in as soon as you returned. Turtles seem to be biting pretty good this
weather," he laughed, as he conducted him to a small room in the rear
of the bank.

Bob had never had much to do with banks; indeed, he could count on the
fingers of one hand all the times he had ever been inside of one, and
as to a directors' private room, he did not even know there was such a
place, let alone ever having been in one. It was not to be wondered at
then that he was embarrassed when he entered the room a moment later
and saw the president and his friend seated in comfortable leather
chairs before a large mahogany table.

"Back already, Bob?" asked the banker. "I don't suppose you thought to
inquire how much the express charges will be on those turtles to
Pittsburgh?"

"Yes, I did. They weighed 378 pounds, and the rate is 75 cents per
hundred pounds--that makes $2.63," he replied, drawing a small
notebook from his pocket and consulting a memorandum he had made.

"Do you always figure out things?" asked the banker, apparently much
interested that Bob had taken the trouble to find out the rate and
figure the cost of the expressage to Pittsburgh.

"I do most always," he answered. "I learned to do that selling
chickens and keeping account of the milk Gurney gives."

"Don't you keep a record of the milk all your cows give?" asked Mr.
Dow.

"Oh, Gurney is our cow at home--not one of Uncle Joe's cows. Gurney's
a purebred with a pedigree," he declared proudly.

"When are you going to start keeping a record of the cows on the farm,
Bob?" asked the banker.

"I don't know," replied Bob. "Uncle Joe don't believe in it yet. He
thinks it's a waste of time, and he always laughs when I tell him that
it is the only way to find out if a cow's worth her keep, but," he
added smiling, "he drained the pond and he didn't believe in that two
days ago."

"I suppose you want the money for the turtles, Bob," said the banker,
getting back to the main subject.

"Well, yes," he said, "but who's buying them, Mr. White--you or Mr.
Dow?"

"Ha, ha," laughed the banker. "This is where you get stuck, Al."

"Why, how's that?" asked his friend.

"Well," said the banker, "I asked the manager of the Fort Henry how
much he'd pay a pound for nice fat turtles. You see, Bob, I reduce
everything to figures, too. Look at this and you'll see why it pays."

Bob took the paper and read "378 pounds turtles, at 30 cents per
pound--$75.60, less $2.63 expressage--$72.97."

"But you haven't deducted anything for your own trouble, Mr. White,"
said Bob, scarcely able to believe his eyes. "Don't you intend to
charge anything for selling them to the hotel? Father says every
business man must make profit on the things he sells, if he wants to
keep in business."

"Well, Bob, I'm not going to charge you a commission on this deal.
I've had too much fun already sticking my friend Al here a stiff price
for the turtles," he added laughing.

"Don't think you've turned such a clever trick, John," replied his
friend. "The hotel's only paying about $40 more than you were willing
to pay yourself, and probably won't use half of them for our dinner.
Besides, I've gotten a fine idea for my talk at our meeting on
Wednesday night."

"What's that?" asked the banker.

"Hidden Treasure," replied his friend. "Why, just look what's happened
to Bob here in two days. On Saturday there was a pond occupying
fifteen acres of the best ground on the farm and producing nothing.
To-day he has $72.97 and has prepared the way for the finest field of
corn that will be raised this year in the county, if not the state,
and there's no telling what he may do yet when he gets his Uncle Joe
thoroughly waked up," he laughed.

"By the way, Bob, do you want your money in cash?" asked the banker
looking at him keenly.

"If it's all the same to you, Mr. White, I'd like to leave it here on
deposit," replied Bob.

"Put it in the savings department, Bob," suggested Mr. Dow, "then
you'll get interest. Say, Bob," he continued, "tell your Uncle Joe I'm
going to have our agent see him and show him how he can protect his
family while he's paying for the farm."

"All right, I'll tell him," Bob replied.

When Bob drove into the barnyard just before noon his uncle hurried
over and looked into the wagon.

"Why, did he take all the turtles, Bob?" he inquired, surprised to
find the wagon empty.

"Yes, he took them," said Bob, "and sold them right away to the Fort
Henry Hotel in Pittsburgh. He called them up on the long distance
telephone."

"How much did he pay you for them?" was the next inquiry.

"$72.97," replied Bob proudly.

"What! for those turtles!" exclaimed his uncle. "I don't believe it."

"Well, you don't have to believe me," Bob laughed as he jumped from
the wagon. "I've the proof here." And he proudly exhibited his new
bank book.

The look of surprise on his uncle's face gave way to one of
disappointment.

"Of course, Uncle Joe, I put the money in the bank--I didn't want to
carry it around," he added.

His uncle said nothing more, but turned on his heel and walked away.
It was very evident to Bob that he had changed his mind and expected
him to turn over the proceeds from the sale of the turtles, but he was
determined that his uncle should stick to his agreement.

"Uncle Joe," he called, as his uncle reached the gate. "Mr. White told
me to tell you that the matter you were discussing with him was all
right and that he would be glad to see you any time."

"Oh, he did," said his uncle, turning and coming back to the wagon,
where Bob was unhitching the team.

"Yes, he did," said Bob, "said he'd accommodate you any time you were
in town."

"Well, I'm glad you drove a good bargain for the sale of the turtles,
Bob," remarked his uncle, the look of disappointment gone. "I said
they were yours and I want you to know that I still feel the same way
about it."

"Thank you, Uncle Joe," replied Bob, as he started for the barn with
the team.




VI

SELLING SAND


"Bob," said his uncle after dinner, as they were bringing the horses
from the barn, "the old pond looks as though it might take all summer
to dry out. Then, too, the brook winds through the center of it in
such a way as to really spoil the field for farming."

"Why couldn't we straighten the brook, Uncle Joe," asked Bob, after a
moment's thought, "or move it over to the south side against the bank
there. That would make it almost a straight line between the lane
bridge and the old forebay."

"But that would make a lot of work, Bob," replied his uncle, "and we
have more now than we have time for. It would be a good idea though to
have the brook on the outside of the field; but what bothers me most
is how we're going to keep the field from being flooded every time it
rains."

To this Bob made no reply.

All afternoon, as they were hauling manure to the field, he kept
turning over in his mind the question of straightening the brook, for
it was now evident that in order to make the field a success the brook
would not only have to be straightened but moved over to the south
side, so as to have the field all in one piece. He realized now that
the easiest part of redeeming the pond had been the letting out of the
water, and also that his uncle was right in saying that it might take
all summer for the bottom to dry out sufficiently for planting.

Bob had persuaded his uncle to let him stop work in the afternoon at
four-thirty in order to have time to do the milking and chores, and he
found that by hurrying he could get through before six o'clock. So
that night in the early twilight, he paced off the length of the south
side of the pond and found it was approximately seven hundred feet
from the bridge to the forebay. He remembered that, except on rare
occasions, the opening between the abutments of the bridge that
carried the lane over the brook had always been sufficient to take
care of any water. He now measured this space and found that the
abutments were eighteen feet apart and from the under side of the
timbers to the bed of the brook it was four feet six inches. He
returned to the house and got out his notebook and began making some
calculations. He found the area of the space under the bridge to be
eighty-one square feet. If they could dig a ditch back a few feet from
the south bank of the pond, where the ground rose sharply, and throw
the excavated earth on the north side of the cut, they would have a
channel with two good banks at the expense of making only one.

By pacing off eighteen feet of the bank, he had found that the slope
of the ground would average about two feet for that distance. The
depth of the water along the bank on the south side had been about two
feet. By digging three feet below the level of the bottom of the pond
it would mean an average cut of six feet. Taking out a block of earth
approximately eighteen feet by six feet, of one hundred and eight
square feet, would raise the banks high enough to allow for heavy
freshets, and the bottom of the ditch, being three feet below the
bottom of the pond, would allow for drainage.

He now calculated the amount of earth to be removed and found there
would be twenty-eight hundred cubic yards to be dug and piled up to
form the new north bank of the cut. He had no idea how much time it
would require to do this work, or what it might cost if they hired a
man to do it for them. After sitting for a few minutes debating the
matter, he became so sleepy that he put his notebook in his pocket and
went to bed.

"How long will it take you to dig a cubic yard of earth and pile it
out on one side of a ditch, Uncle Joe?" asked Bob the next morning at
the breakfast table.

"I don't know, Bob. Why do you ask?"

"I wanted to find out how much it would cost to straighten the brook
in our new bottom field," he replied.

"Well, I know one thing," said his uncle, "and that is that it will
cost more than I can afford to spend; and you know, Bob, we have no
time for digging ditches ourselves--in fact, it seems to me it was a
great mistake to drain the pond at all--the water at least covered the
bad-smelling bottom, and we could shoot an occasional wild duck
there."

"I'm not so sure about it being too expensive," replied Bob. "Mr.
White said yesterday that it didn't matter so much what an improvement
cost, if it could be made to pay the interest on the investment and
earn a profit beside. All I need to know now to complete my figures is
how much earth a man can dig and then I can tell how much it would
cost."

"If you want to know so badly, Bob, why don't you take a pick and
shovel and dig out a yard, and find out for yourself," suggested his
grandmother.

"Yes," said his uncle, "then you'd know what a real backache feels
like."

"All right," said Bob, "when may I do it?" turning to his uncle.

"Well, I suppose you might as well do it this morning as any time,"
said his uncle. "I know you won't be able to sleep to-night until you
find out; besides, I'm going to town and you can have the forenoon
off."

"That'll be fine, Uncle Joe," said Bob, "and there's another thing
too, I wanted to ask you. I see wagons hauling sand and gravel from
our pit. Who collects the money and how much do you charge them?"

"Charge a neighbor for a few loads of sand, Bob? What are you talking
about? Of course not."

"But if you went to their farms, Uncle Joe, and asked for the rich
soil out of their fields, they'd make you pay for it."

"Why, of course, Bob, but rich soil and sand and gravel are different.
There's plenty of sand and gravel."

"Where, Uncle Joe?"

"Oh, everywhere."

"Then if that's so," said Bob, "why did Dan McCormick send his three
wagons four miles to our pit last week? He said it was the nearest
sand to his farm and what's more he said it's the only clean sand and
gravel that don't need washing for fifteen miles around. I think we
ought to charge them so much a yard."

"All right, Bob," said his uncle, whose mind was evidently occupied
with things more important than selling sand. "You go ahead and make
them pay, but remember, if you don't have any friends among your
neighbors, don't blame me."

When his uncle returned from town a little after twelve o'clock, he
drove down to see what Bob was doing, and found him at work on the
ditch. As soon as Bob saw his uncle's face, he knew he had received
his loan from Mr. White, for he was smiling and seemed to be very
happy.

"Well, Bob, how are you making out?" he called cheerily, as he
approached, looking at the excavated dirt thrown out. Then his eye
caught a double line of stakes set at intervals and running the full
length of the pond, marking out the two sides of the cut.

"I dug out one cubic yard in forty minutes, Uncle Joe, but we could do
much better with a team of horses and a plow and scoop. Allowing
thirty cents per hour, the ditch would cost eight hundred and forty
dollars."

"Whee," said his uncle, "more than we could ever afford to pay, Bob,
I'm afraid, even though Mr. White is in favor of it and agreed to-day
to loan me whatever it would cost."

"Oh, then you told him about it?" said Bob. "How did he like the
scheme?"

"He said it was a first-rate idea, Bob. He also said we should lay
tile field drain through the bottom of the pond to the ditch every
fifty feet over the entire field. These would soon drain the bottom
and keep the new field dry."

"I've been wondering," said Bob, "what we could do about draining the
bottom, but I didn't think of tile, although it sounds like a good
idea."

And Bob took out his notebook and figured for a few minutes.

"If we put them fifty feet apart, that would mean twelve rows; each
row would be six hundred feet long--that would mean 7200 lineal feet.
Did Mr. White say what the tile would be worth a foot, laid, Uncle
Joe?"

"No, he didn't, Bob, and I was too busy to ask him."

"What would you say, Uncle Joe," remarked Bob a few minutes later, "if
I were to tell you we can get the ditch dug, a new dam built across
between the two banks down by the beech trees, and a road cut up the
west slope by the barn, so as to get rid of that steep hill, and we
won't have to spend one cent."

"What nonsense are you talking?" demanded his uncle. "You just said it
would cost eight hundred and forty dollars to dig the ditch alone."

"So it would, Uncle Joe, if we dug it by hand. We could probably do it
quicker if we used a team of horses and scoop, but, of course, we'd
have to allow for the value of the team while it was doing the work,
and, besides, it would take too long."

"Well, then, how'd it be done?" asked his uncle, interested in spite
of himself, for after his interview with the president of the First
National that morning he began to look upon Bob as something more than
a chore boy.

"Come over to the sand pit with me, Uncle Joe," he replied, "and I'll
show you."

Together they walked over to the pit and the first thing that caught
his uncle's eye was a large sign: Sand and Gravel for Sale Price 5oc
per cu. yd. Cash or Labor Inquire Robert Williams

"Well, what does it mean?" asked his uncle, reading the sign for the
second time.

"It means, Uncle Joe, that while I was still nailing up that sign two
men came along in a big gray touring car and stopped, and one of them
wanted to know what we'd take for the pit. I told him we sold our eggs
by the dozen and not by what a hen might lay in a year. He laughed and
said his name was Brady and that he had a contract for building some
bridges for the new railroad that's coming in three miles down the
creek and needed sand and gravel. The gentleman with him, who I judged
from what they said was the engineer for the railroad, seemed to be
very much pleased with the kind of sand and gravel we had, and I heard
him tell Mr. Brady he'd approve it for the work. After looking the pit
over, Mr. Brady asked what was meant by 'Cash or Labor,' so I told him
we had some work we wanted done and would be willing to have him give
us an estimate on the cost. He asked me what it was and I told him it
was a ditch, a dam and a road. So he went up and looked the ditch
over, then we went down to the beech trees and I explained to him
about the new dam we were going to put in there to generate electric
light for the farm. Then we rode up to the west slope in his big
touring car and he examined the bank there. I showed him my figures
for the ditch, and he made a memorandum of them; then he said if we
would let him have the exclusive use of the sand pit for one year,
taking out as much sand as he needed, and also let him have the heavy
timbers from the old mill, as he needed them for some shoring he had
to do, he would be willing to tear down the old mill, dig our ditch,
build us a new dam and a new road, using his caterpillar steam shovel
for the work."

"What did you say, Bob?" eagerly asked his uncle.

"I told him we couldn't think of it," replied Bob with a grin.

"What! You didn't take him up? What could you have been thinking of,
Bob?"

"Well, you see, Uncle Joe, we'll need a lot of sand and gravel
ourselves for making concrete fence posts and things like that, and
then we may want to build a concrete road from the main road up to the
barn, and, of course, we need a new dairy house and big silo."

"Yes, I know, Bob; the old place is pretty well run down," said his
uncle. "Mr. White said something to-day about looking ahead and making
permanent improvements, but we can't think of doing that now."

"I'm not so sure about that, Uncle Joe," replied Bob. "It seems we've
got the only sand and gravel pit within fifteen miles with sand and
gravel that the railroad engineer will accept for his work. I
overheard him say that to Mr. Brady."

"Well, what did you finally do about the sand, Bob?" inquired his
uncle eagerly.

"I told him the price was fifty cents per cubic yard in the pit, but
we would let him pay for it in work, if his prices for the work were
not too high, so he's going to make up a figure and come back and see
us. I told him I thought you'd be willing to let him have the timber
from the mill if he would take off the boards and two by fours and
haul them over to the sand pit for us. You know, Uncle Joe, these will
come in handy for us to build a shed when we start to make fence posts
and other things there."

"But will he need enough sand to pay for all this work, Bob?" asked
his uncle, now greatly excited.

"Yes, I'm sure he'll need more, for he seemed to be anxious to buy the
pit outright."

"He did!"

"Yes, he did, but I told him we were not willing to sell it, Uncle
Joe; that we expected to put up a lot of concrete buildings on the
farm besides building some concrete roads and making a lot of concrete
fence posts."

"Well, Bob, I guess you did a good half day's work all right," said
his uncle, "and to show you that I appreciate the way you've handled
this matter, I'll let you make the deal with Brady when he comes
back."

They didn't have long to wait, for about three o'clock that afternoon
a big gray touring car came snorting up the steep hill back of the
barn and stopped near where they were loading manure. The driver of
the car got out and came over to them.

"This is the Uncle Joe, I was telling you about, Mr. Brady," said Bob,
by way of introduction, as the contractor came up to them.

"Glad to know you, Mr. Williams. I came up to see you about buying
your sand pit. What will you take for it in cash? I haven't a great
deal of time to lose, so I brought the money with me," and he drew
from his pocket the largest roll of bills that Bob had ever seen in
his life.

"You'll have to--to--talk it over with Bob," hesitated Bob's uncle,
for at the sight of so much ready money he began to waver in his
resolutions to let Bob handle the matter.

"We don't want to sell it, Mr. Brady," spoke up Bob quickly. "We want
to control the pit ourselves and have sand and gravel for our own
use."

"Oh, that's all right. I'll let you have all you want for your own
use, free of cost, too," said Mr. Brady quickly.

"No," said Bob. "This is the only sand and gravel pit around here,
and, when they start building concrete roads in this county, which
they may do any time now, this pit will be valuable."

"Say, son," said the contractor, "you're wasting your time on a farm.
You ought to be with me in the contracting business. Who's been
telling you about this new county road work?"

"No one's been telling me," said Bob, "but everyone can see it doesn't
pay to haul heavy loads over rough roads to market your crops, and as
for farming," he added," it's a good business, too, Mr. Brady,
especially if you have a good sand pit on the place," he added
laughing.

[Illustration: "WELL, SON, LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS. I SEE YOU'RE
WISE ALL RIGHT TO THE VALUE OF THAT PIT"]

"Well, son, let's get down to business. I see you're wise all right to
the value of that pit. How much work do you want me to do and how much
money will you want me to give you, and who's going to keep account of
the sand we get and when do we settle for it?"

"You said you had a steam shovel, Mr. Brady," said Bob. "Is it busy
now? We want to get this bottom land ready for corn this year."

"Not doing anything at the present time; can start your work next week
for the shovel's on the railroad siding at Indiana now," he replied
quickly.

"What do you charge a day for use of shovel with a man to operate it?"
asked Bob.

"Hold on there, son; you'll get to be as smart as I am if you keep on
at that rate. I don't rent the shovel by the day, but I'll tell you
what: I'll do your work on contract."

"All right," said Bob. "How much do you want for digging the ditch?"

"$700," said Mr. Brady, consulting a memorandum.

"And how much for building the dam?"

"$200 without a concrete spillway and sluice gate and $350 more with
them."

"And how much for the road up the west slope?"

"Well, that won't cost you much, son; that's an easier job than it
looks. I'll charge you only $100 for doing that. That would make $1350
total."

"Yes," replied Bob, setting down the amount in his own memorandum
book. "How much sand will you need, Mr. Brady?"

The contractor took a memorandum book from his pocket and consulted it
for a moment.

"About ten to fifteen thousand yards of sand and gravel together on my
first contract, but I expect to have a contract for building roads
pretty soon that will require more than double that."

At the mention of these figures, Bob exchanged glances with his uncle,
who had with difficulty kept to his agreement to let Bob make the
bargain, and he fairly gasped when he began to realize the earning
capacity of the old sand pit.

"I think you're charging me too much money, son, for the sand and
gravel. You ought to knock off five or ten cents per yard and give me
exclusive right to the pit."

"No," said Bob, "we're not willing to do that, but we will make this
bargain with you, Mr. Brady: if you will do our work for us right
away, we'll agree not to charge you more than fifty cents a cubic yard
for as much sand and gravel as you want."

Seeing there was no other way out of the matter, the contractor
finally consented to this arrangement.

"I'm not much on verbal contracts," he said, "for I find that people
who do not set down in black and white what they agree to do, often
forget and then there's trouble, so if you don't mind, Mr. Williams,
we'll step into the house and put our agreement in writing."

"How shall we arrange to keep account of the amount of materials I
get?" asked Mr. Brady, as they started for the house.

"How do you usually do?" asked Bob.

"I've got some tickets with my name on them," replied the contractor,
"and every time a man takes away a load he gives one of those tickets
to the man in charge of the pit. By the way, I suppose there'll be
some one in charge who can take care of these tickets?"

"Yes," said Bob quickly, before his uncle had a chance to speak.
"We're going to start a man making fence posts at the pit next week
and you can give the tickets to him."

A few minutes after they had sat down at the table in the sitting room
Mr. Brady handed the agreement to' Bob's uncle to read. He read it
over and then handed it to Bob, who read it over twice, very careful,
and then laid it down on the table.

"It reads all right, Mr. Brady, and seems to be just what we agreed to
do," said Bob, "but before we sign it I'd like to show it to Mr.
White, president of the First National Bank."

"All right, son, just as you like," said the contractor, a look of
disappointment on his face as he put his fountain pen in his pocket.
"I'll be here on Monday with my men and outfit, for I'm sure Mr. White
will find the agreement is all right."

"I think it is myself," said Bob, "but I'd like to have him read it
over anyway before it's signed."

As they walked out to the barnyard, where his car was standing, the
contractor turned to Joe Williams and asked:

"How do you manage to get up and down that steep hill with your
automobile, Mr. Williams?" "Oh, I don't have an automobile," Williams
replied.

"What! no car?" exclaimed Mr. Brady. "I don't see how your women folks
get along without one. Cars are so low and horses so high nowadays, it
don't pay to take a horse out of a busy team to drive to town. I
should think you couldn't do without one. Well, good day," he added,
as he climbed into his car and threw on the self-starter. "See you
next week."




VII

THE NEW AUNT


The following week was a very busy and eventful one for Bob. Plowing
time was rapidly approaching, and his uncle was anxious to have all
the manure placed on the fields ready to start work early; besides,
they had taken a day off at Bob's urging to prune the young orchard.
On Thursday he received a large package of Farm Bulletins from the
Department of Agriculture at Washington, in reply to a postcard he had
sent. He had only time for a hasty glance through them, before having
to lay them away for careful reading later.

On Friday his uncle turned over the team to him, saying he was going
to town for the day. Bob noticed that he had dressed up in his best
clothes, so was not surprised when he came in from work late that
afternoon to find they had company at the house.

"Come here, Bob," called his uncle cheerily, as he entered. "I want
you to meet your new Aunt Bettie. She isn't exactly your aunt yet, but
she will be soon."

Bob hastened forward to take the out stretched hand of the woman who
rose to greet him.

Bob had a quick eye for beauty; he noted the fair, soft complexion
which the rich dark hair set off so beautifully, but not this alone
made the strong and conscious appeal to him--it was the frank manner
with which she took his hand and the friendly light in her lovely
brown eyes that won Bob completely.

"So this is 'Bob,' of whom you have been telling me," said Miss
Atwood. "I'm certainly glad to make your acquaintance, Bob. Your Uncle
Joe has been telling me many things about you, and I know we're going
to be fast friends and have lots of fun together on the farm this
summer."

"I hope so," said Bob, "for I like farming better than anything I
know; there are so many interesting things to see and do."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, Bob," she replied. "In these days,
when most boys of your age want to be in the town and cities, it's
refreshing to find one who has vision enough to appreciate the golden
opportunities of the country. Your Uncle Joe doesn't know it, but I've
been doing considerable reading myself about farm life and farm work
since we became engaged, and the more I read the more enthusiastic I
become, and I'm sure we're going to have lots of pleasant days and
evenings, too, together."

"Have you been reading farm bulletins, also, Aunt Bettie?" Bob asked
hesitating, as he used her new title for the first time.

"That's right, I want you to call me 'Aunt Bettie'," she replied
quickly, seeing his embarrassment. "Yes, I've gotten a great many
bulletins from the Department of Agriculture at Washington and have
read them over and over very carefully. The opportunities on a farm,
if one just keeps his eyes open, are certainly wonderful."

"I'd like to read your bulletins, too," said Bob, his eyes sparkling.

"I thought you were going to give up teaching school, Bettie,"
interrupted her intended husband, "and here you and Bob are getting
ready to start one. First thing you know, you'll be getting another
scholar, one six feet tall," and he laughed down at her.

"Well, frankly, Joe," she replied, "you might spend your evenings less
profitably than reading bulletins and other interesting papers on
making farms pay."

"Guess I'll have to get in line," he replied laughing. "Bob's been
preaching to me ever since he came here about modernizing the old farm
and digging up our 'Hidden Treasure,' as he calls it."

"You'll have to excuse me now, Aunt Bettie," said Bob, "for it's
milking time and I always plan to milk our cows regularly."

His heart was light and he whistled a merry tune as he started for the
barn, the milk pails on his arm. He now felt sure that this summer was
going to be the happiest one he had ever spent.

After the supper dishes had been cleared away, they sat together and
talked of the things to be done to improve the farm and which would be
the best crops to plant. As the discussion continued, Joe Williams
began to realize that both Bettie and Bob knew many things about
farming of which he was ignorant--things which, he reluctantly
admitted to himself, were of the utmost importance.

On Saturday they quit work at noon to go to town. Bob asked his uncle
if he were going to take Mr. Brady's contract and show it to Mr.
White, the banker.

"The bank closes at noon on Saturdays, Bob," replied his uncle, "and
we're to be pretty busy, Bettie and I, buying our things, for we're
getting new furniture for the house, and I want to bring it back with
me."

"Perhaps Mr. White doesn't go out of town on Saturday and I could find
him at his home," said Bob. "I think we ought to have the matter
settled before Mr. Brady gets here on Monday morning with his tools.
It might make some difference if he started work before the agreement
is signed."

"All right, Bob, you take the contract and try to find him. I'll be
too busy loading the furniture to bother with it."

So as soon as he arrived in town, Bob left the wagon in front of the
furniture store where his uncle, who had driven in with Miss Atwood in
the buggy, was waiting. He hurried over to the First National Bank.
The bank seemed to be closed, but the entrance door was unlocked, and
after some time he found the banker in the directors' room going over
some papers.

"Back already for your money, Bob?" laughed the banker, as he opened
the door to admit him.

"No, Mr. White, I haven't yet found a better investment for the money.
I came to see you about our sand pit. A Mr. Brady, who says he has the
contract to build some bridges for the new railroad, wants to buy our
sand and we have made a bargain with him and he put it in writing. We
didn't sign it, for while it seems to be all right, Uncle Joe would
like to have you look it over first."

"Oh, indeed," replied the banker, "and whose idea was it that I should
read the contract before signing?"

"Well," hesitated Bob, "we thought maybe it would be better to be sure
it was all right since you're loaning Uncle Joe money for the farm."

"That's right, Bob; that's only fair. Follow out that principle and
you'll always get along."

He took the paper and read it through carefully and laid it down. Then
he reflected a moment, picked it up and read it again. Then he
whistled softly.

"You're right, Bob, in bringing this to me," he said, tapping the top
of the table thoughtfully with the end of his pencil. "That contract
is very well written.

"You see, Bob," said the banker, laying the document on the table,
"this contract would be all right if you were sure you had enough sand
and gravel to supply Mr. Brady's wants, but you will notice that he
does not specify how much material he expected to use, nor does he
state when he will require it, and if he took a notion to measure all
the sand you have in the pit and issue a receipt for it, he could take
it and let it lie on your ground for re-sale; he could do that under
this agreement. Also, if you didn't have as much material as he
wanted, he could compel you to supply him from other sources at the
rate of fifty cents a yard."

"Well, what had we better do about it, Mr. White?" inquired Bob. "Mr.
Brady's going to go to work on the ditch on Monday morning. He's
setting up his caterpillar steam shovel now and getting ready."

"Wait a moment," said the banker, as he pressed the button. "I'll see
if my stenographer has gone. She usually leaves at noon, but to-day I
had some extra work that she stayed to finish--no, here she comes--
we'll have it re-written."

"Will you kindly make two copies of this agreement, Miss Brown?" asked
the banker.

"You see, Bob, there should always be two copies of all agreements--
one fer yourself and one for the other party to the contract. It is
always best to have all agreements in duplicate."

"You see, Bob," said the banker, as he finished dictating, "I've added
a time limit to the contract. A year from now, when I hope they will
begin making concrete county roads, your sand and gravel, if the
supply holds out, ought to be worth at least $1.00 per cubic yard."

"I had no idea sand and gravel were so valuable" said Bob.

"Well, I've been looking the matter up a bit lately," replied the
banker, "and I wouldn't be surprised if you could get that price for
it a year from now--maybe before that even. There isn't a great deal
of good sand and gravel in the entire county--certainly none that is
as good as yours. If you've something else you'd like to do, Bob, you
may stop around in an hour or so and get these contracts. I'll read
them over after Miss Brown has them finished, and put my O. K. on
them. I may not be here when you return."

Bob hastened to the store to impart the information he had obtained to
his uncle, but found him so busy loading the farm wagon with his new
purchases that Bob had to explain the matter to him several times
before he seemed to understand.

At four o'clock Bob returned to the bank and received the corrected
copies from the president, who was still there.

"How much do we owe you, Mr. White, for doing this for us?" asked Bob.

"Oh, I don't think I'll charge you anything for this, Bob, although it
is worth something to know how to do a thing right, but since I've
decided to make our bank the headquarters for farmers, we expect to do
little things like this for our friends, so you're welcome to whatever
the service is worth."

"Well, I'm sure we didn't expect you to do it for nothing," replied
Bob, "and I know Uncle Joe will be pleased that you fixed it up for
him."

"By the way, Bob," said the banker, "you might tell your uncle that
there's going to be a sale of some purebred and grade Holstein cattle
next week on a farm in the southern part of the county, and that I'd
like to have him bid them in. There are ten young cows and a fine
bull--just the kind he should have to start a herd on his farm."

At the mention of the purebreds, Bob's eyes sparkled, but after
reflecting a moment he replied:

"Uncle Joe'll not have money enough to buy any now, Mr. White, and
besides, he doesn't think there's much advantage in purebred over
ordinary cattle."

"You tell your Uncle Joe that the First National Bank is back of him
and we'll loan him the necessary money to buy these cattle, and that I
think he should replace his present herd of old common cattle with
young purebred stock--that it will pay him to do so. He can get back a
part of their cost by selling off his present herd. I've about come to
the conclusion, Bob, that there's more money in that sand pit of your
Uncle Joe's than either you or he have any idea. Tell him the sale
will be next Tuesday, and if he'll come in early in the morning, I'll
drive him down in my automobile. We can get back easy by noon, so
he'll only lose half a day. I know all about these cattle--they're a
first-class healthy herd. The man that owned them died, and his widow
is selling off all their stock."

"All right, Mr. White, I'll tell him," said Bob. "Thank you for your
advice about the contract."

"I want to see that farm of your uncle's, Bob, improved and well
stocked this year--first on account of the benefit he'll get from it
and second on account of the influence it will have on the neighboring
farms. We've lots of good farms around here, Bob, and I want a model
one for the others to pattern after. All our farms need to make them
pay well is wide-awake farmers, with a constructive bank back of them
to give them the necessary financial help to get started. I've decided
that the First National is going to be that bank, and stand back of
all farmers in this county who'll make real improvements.

"Your uncle's farm I've picked out to start with, on account of his
having that gravel pit, which will make it possible to build his new
buildings and pay off the mortgage quickly. Of course, the others must
necessarily go slower in their improvements, but when we finish with
your uncle this fall, Bob, we'll have the others all so jealous
they'll just naturally get into line."




VIII

THE SALE


Bob's heart beat quickly on Monday morning, as he looked out from the
barnyard in the direction of the old mill and saw the smoke coming
from the steam shovel that Mr. Brady had placed at the lower end of
the ditch, ready to start operations. Brady evidently intended to do
the work in the shortest possible time, for while Bob was still
looking, the operator started the machine, and Bob saw the shovel sink
deep into the soft earth and a moment later swing over to the north
side, and the first yard of dirt had been removed. He even forgave the
contractor for his attempt to drive a sharp bargain in his written
contract, though he remembered Brady's embarrassment when his uncle
pointed out the defects in his written agreement and hastily signed
the corrected one made by John White.

Bob could scarcely realize that it was little more than a week since
the eventful Saturday afternoon he had spent fishing in the old pond.
He was whistling merrily as he brought out the horses to start the
spring plowing.

"I don't like to spoil that merry tune of yours so early Monday
morning, Bob, but I've been in a quandary for several days to know how
to tell you that it isn't going to be possible for you to go to the
wedding," said his uncle. "You see, some one will have to stay on the
place while we're away, and your grandmother and grandfather ought to
go, and, of course, I'll have to be there myself," he laughed.

"That's all right," replied Bob. "Of course, I'd like to go to the
wedding, but I'll have lots of time to get acquainted with Aunt Bettie
afterwards, and, besides," he added, glancing at the sun coming over
the hill, "we ought to get our spring plowing started as soon as
possible. I was just wondering, Uncle Joe," he added, "who we could
get to look after the sand pit and start making fence posts. I was
reading in one of the 'Concrete on the Farm' bulletins how they're
made. It isn't going to be much of a job to receive the tickets for
sand and gravel that Mr. Brady'll take away, and the man in charge can
spend practically all of his time making fence posts. He ought to make
at least 20 posts each day--that would mean that in a month we would
have 520 posts--enough for 520 rods of fence--or in a year 6240 rods."

"But you couldn't make fence posts in cold weather, Bob," corrected
his uncle.

"Why, yes, you can, Uncle Joe, if you have an enclosed shed with some
heat in it. The bulletin tells all about how to do concrete work in
cold weather."

"Well, I'll look around to-day, Bob, and see who I can find. I have to
go to town at noon to attend to some business. You have to get a
license, you know, so I'll have to attend to that before I forget it.
Shall I plow around for the first time or two for you, Bob?" asked his
uncle, as they hitched the team to the plow.

"No," said Bob. "I'd like to try it myself," and he guided the horses
along the fence for the first furrow.

The field they had selected was the one lying just back of the barn,
and Bob had completed three sides and was coming along the fourth,
which adjoined the fence between the woodshed and the house. His
uncle, who was washing the buggy, looked up and noticed that he was
leaving considerable space between this fence and his furrow.

"Why are you leaving such a large space in the corner, Bob?" he
called, as the team came abreast of where he was working.

"I was leaving a space for a new hen house, Uncle Joe," he replied.

"What new hen house?" asked his uncle.

"Oh, didn't Aunt Bettie tell you when she was here that we talked
about the location for a new hen house, and she thought it ought to be
put out here in this field between the house and the barn, so that it
would face to the south," answered Bob.

"Why, no, I guess she must have forgotten to mention it to me," said
his uncle, "but I don't think we'll be able to afford any new
buildings on the farm this year, Bob."

"I'm not so sure about that," replied Bob. "You know, Mr. White said
the First National Bank was going to be run as a constructive bank and
that he would be willing to loan money on any permanent improvements,
and that he wanted to make a model farm of yours this year. Besides,
you remember what I told you he said about the value of our sand and
gravel pit."

"Yes, Bob, but look at the work we have contracted for already; don't
forget how many loads of sand and gravel it will take to pay for
that."

"That's so," said Bob, "but Mr. White didn't seem to be so much
concerned about the amount we spent for improvements as what we spent
it for. He seems to be anxious to have us fix the old farm up and
believes it will pay."

"That's all right for you and John White," added his uncle, "to talk
of making this a model farm in a year, but it's my name that's going
to be on the notes, and some fine morning when we get all these
improvements made, he may drive out here and take the model farm away
from me for the notes."

"I don't think John White would do such a thing," said Bob stoutly.
"Besides, why should he call his bank a 'Constructive Bank,' if he
used it to destroy other people's hopes? I should think he would call
it a 'Destructive Bank,' instead."

"Well, maybe so," said his uncle. "Anyhow, it won't hurt any one to
let that little corner go undeveloped for the present, till I talk it
over with your Aunt Bettie. It may please her if we carry out her
suggestion."

"Why're you so quiet, Bob?" asked his grandmother at dinner that day.
"One would think it was you that was getting married instead of your
Uncle Joe, sitting there as solemn as an owl and not saying anything.
Has the cat run away with your tongue so soon?"

"Why, no," said Bob. "I was just thinking."

"You weren't feeling badly because you weren't going to the wedding,
were you?" asked his uncle, looking up.

"No, Uncle Joe, I wasn't. I was just wondering if they might have some
bees at the sale to-morrow."

"Bees!" exclaimed his grandmother. "What in the world do you want with
bees? Isn't it bad enough around the farm already with yellow-jackets
and bumble-bees, without bringing any more here? I should think you
would get stung enough by the wild bees without wanting to bring a lot
of honey bees to the farm."

"Yes, grandmother, but you forget that the wild bees don't make any
honey, or earn anything for us, and honey bees would be earning money
all the time. I've been reading in one of the farmers' bulletins that
a good colony of bees would make 30 pounds of honey in a season, which
at 20 cents per pound would be worth $6.00, and the only thing we
would have to do would be to look them over carefully and smoke them
once in a while when they swarmed," he replied.

"Say, Bob, did John White put these bees in your bonnet?" asked his
uncle suddenly.

[Illustration with caption: BEES ARE A PROFITABLE SIDE LINE THAT PAY
IN INCREASED CROPS OF FRUIT AS WELL AS HONEY AND REQUIRE LITTLE CARE]

"No, it was an idea I got out of one of the farm bulletins," he
replied.

"Well, I think you had better give up reading those bulletins for a
while, and keep your mind on your plowing," said his uncle.

"Why, didn't I do lots of work this morning, Uncle Joe?" asked Bob
surprised.

"Yes, of course; but I mean you can't work and think both," said his
uncle.

"Why not, Uncle Joe? Don't you remember what Mr. Dow, the insurance
man, said about the farmers that didn't think?"

"Well, anyhow, I draw the line at buying bees," replied his uncle
firmly.

"Yes," added his grandmother. "I don't want any bees around here,
spoiling the fruit."

"But, grandmother, you haven't waited to find out what I'm going to do
with them," said Bob. "I don't want to put them around the house. I
want to put them between the clover meadow and the young orchard, and,
besides, they don't spoil the fruit. It's the other insects that do
that. A honey bee couldn't do that if it wanted to."

"Bob," asked his uncle, showing an interest for the first time, "why
do you want to put them away over there?"

"Because I've been reading in the farm bulletins that the reason
orchards have such poor crops of fruit is because they don't have
enough bees to pollinate the blossoms. The bulletin said that every
orchard should have a number of colonies of bees. Of course, the
nearer the bees are to the blossoms the more honey they'll make,
because the distance is short; besides, if we put them at the edge of
the orchard next to the meadow when the clover is in bloom, they could
work on the clover, too, just as easy as the orchard blossoms, and
they'd make a lot of honey," he declared.

"Well, Bob, you certainly have been reading those books," said his
grandfather, glancing up from his paper. "Between your own work, Joe,
your new wife and your chore boy," he said, "you're going to lead a
pretty busy life this summer, if I don't miss my guess."

"Well, why not, grandfather?" demanded Bob.

"No reason in the world, my boy, and you've hit the nail square on the
head by locating the hives between the orchard and the meadow. A bee
can probably make four to five times as much honey in a season there
than if we put the hives out back of the barn or in some other place
near the house."

"I'd like to please you in this matter, Bob, if I could," said his
uncle, "but you know how things are this year. We're doing so much
already that I don't feel as though I could spare a dollar to invest
in bees."

"But, Uncle Joe, I haven't asked you to invest anything in bees. I was
only wondering if there'd be some bees for sale. You know I have
$72.97 myself on deposit at the First National, and I was wondering
whether you'd be willing to let me buy the bees and take enough time
off to look after them for the benefit the orchard would get. I've a
notion that the bees could earn more for me than the money will earn
at interest."

"Now, that's what I call real 'git up and git'," said his grandmother,
suddenly forgetting her prejudice against bees, in admiration of the
scheme.

"Well, if they've any at the sale, how many do you want me to buy,
Bob?" asked his uncle.

"I should think five or six good colonies would do to start with, and
they ought not to cost more than ten dollars each, provided they're
good and healthy."

"How the dickens am I to know whether they're good and healthy, Bob?
You don't want me to knock at their door and say, 'Good morning bees;
how do you find yourself this morning'?"

"Of course not," laughed Bob. "I forgot you don't understand bees."

"But, how would you get them here?" asked his uncle, suddenly
realizing that hauling hives of bees around the country might not be a
pleasant job, and also that the farm to which he was going was some
eighteen miles away.

"Well, of course," said Bob, "it would cost something to haul them,
but maybe they've an automobile truck and you could pay a little more
and have them delivered."

"All right, Bob, I'll look into the matter and let you know when I
return," said his uncle.

After supper, when the chores had been done, Bob went over to look at
the ditch. He was astonished to find how much work had been
accomplished. A clean-cut trench with uniform banks on either side and
the new bank leveled on top 125 feet long had been dug. He didn't know
how much a caterpillar steam shovel was worth, but at the rate the
contractor figured for the ditch, he would have $610.00 left over,
after paying the operator and engineer each $5.00 per day, for six
days' work, which Bob thought ought to be enough to cover their wages,
and adding $5.00 per day for fuel, making $90.00 in all. Machinery was
certainly the thing to handle work quickly and cheaply, for after
deducting the cost of bringing the shovel to the job and taking it
away again, the contractor would make a handsome profit, and he was
more impressed than ever with the conversation he had overheard
between Mr. White and Mr. Dow regarding power on the farm.

Bob was at supper with his grandparents when his Uncle Joe returned
from the sale the next evening, but instead of taking a half day, as
he had thought, he had used up an entire day.

"I thought you were going to get back at noon, Uncle Joe," said Bob.
"Did they have any bees to sell?"

"How many colonies did you ask me to buy, Bob?" asked his uncle
laughing.

"Five or six," said Bob.

"Well, I got them for you all right, but there's not five or six. They
had twenty-two and they wouldn't sell one without selling all. So I
bought them all for $50.00, which you see is less than you said you
were willing to pay for six and they're going to deliver them, too, in
modern sectional hives. They are three-banded Italian, whatever that
means, with one or two exceptions they say the colonies are in a good
healthy condition."

"That's fine," said Bob, so excited he was scarcely able to eat his
supper. "What else did you buy?"

"Well, Bob, if I go to the poorhouse, there'll be no one to blame for
it but you and John White."

"Why, how's that?" asked Bob's grandfather, looking up quickly.

"Well, it was like this: when he got me down there he not only
persuaded me to buy the ten young Holstein cows and a bull, but he
induced me to buy five Berkshire brood sows and two four-year-old
Belgian mares. He wanted me to take a flock of Southdown Ewes and a
ram, but I didn't buy them--there's no money in keeping a few sheep."

"Were they nice-looking sheep, Joe?" asked his father, who was very
fond of sheep.

"The finest I ever saw, father, but I didn't want to go so far in
debt."

"Then who bid them in, Joe?" asked his father.

"Bob."

"Me!" asked Bob, looking up suddenly.

"Yes, John White bought them for you and said he would be willing to
advance the money to pay for them, and you could pay him back later.
He said they were too good a bargain to lose."

"But I've no farm for them to run on," said Bob, "and it wouldn't be
fair for me to pasture them on your land, Uncle Joe."

"I was thinking of that," said his uncle.

"Well, the only fair way, Uncle Joe, would be for you to take the
sheep yourself, for it wouldn't be fair for me to keep them on your
farm. Besides, I'll be busy enough with the bees."

"And the chickens," added his uncle.

"Why, did you buy some chickens, Uncle Joe?"

"Yes, that confounded John White made me buy nearly everything on the
place. I bought fifty single-comb white Leghorn pullets and three
cockerels. Also ten white Plymouth Rock pullets and one cockerel, also
an incubator and brooder. The chickens," added his uncle, "are for
your Aunt Bettie. Since you're going to build a new hen house I
thought we'd better get some good chickens."

Bob was so excited now that he left the table and rushed up to his
room to get out the farm bulletins that showed the best types of hen
houses. When he returned his uncle and his grandfather were busily
talking.

"Joe," remarked his father, "I'm afraid you're getting in pretty deep
with John White putting these notions into your head about modern
farming. Don't forget you owe me $2000.00 on the farm, which, with all
the other things you've bought, you must be terribly in debt."

"I was afraid you'd feel that way about it, father, and I told White
so," he replied.

"He probably don't care, as long as he was getting you to borrow his
money and sign his notes," said his father.

"That's where you do him an injustice, father," replied his son. "He
said the first thing I should do would be to pay you off, and as it
don't make any difference whether I pay interest to you or the bank,
he loaned me enough money to pay you off, so the next time we go to
town we'll fix the matter up. I told John White if I went broke he'd
be the one to suffer."

"What did he say?" asked his father.

"He only laughed and said, 'I'll take a chance on you, Joe, since I've
met the woman you're going to marry and that boy you've got on the
farm. If the pair of them don't make you "git up and git," then I'll
miss my guess.'"

"H'm," sniffed his mother, "it's little that Betsy Atwood knows about
farming, with her high-fangled New England notions and Farm Bulletin
Education. H'm!"

"Now, mother," said her son, "people aren't living on farms any more
the way they used to. Farms must be made attractive and work must be
made easy, if people are to live on them. That's why you're leaving
yourself."

"Nobody ever accused me before, Joe Williams, of not doing my share of
work. Your father and I toiled all our lives and this is how much you
appreciate it."

"But I tell you, mother, farmers aren't satisfied to get along in the
same way they used to. The farmer is human and wants comforts and
pleasures in life just as well as anybody else, and I'm beginning to
believe that John White was right when he made me buy an automobile
to-day."

"What!" almost shouted his mother. "Joe Williams, you've gone plumb
crazy. John White has bewitched you!"

"No, he hasn't, mother. I knew you'd feel that way when I told you
about it, and that's one reason I want to pay you off first, so you
won't lose anything if I fail."

"Whatever induced you to buy an automobile, Joe?" asked his father,
while Bob sat staring, unable to believe his ears.

"Well, it was like this: On the way back from the sale he said, 'Now,
Joe, this ought to give you a pretty good equipment by the time you
get your new buildings put up."

"What! Is he suggesting new buildings?" demanded his mother. "As if
the buildings we used aren't good enough for our children." "It was
like this," Joe continued, ignoring the interruption; "as we were
driving back in the car, he said, 'Now, Joe, I want you to remember
you're marrying a young woman who has been accustomed to going about a
bit, and will have to get away from the farm occasionally in order to
be happy, and you've one of the most enthusiastic boys on your farm
I've ever met, but his enthusiasm will not keep up if he's to be tied
down tight. What you need is an automobile, so you can go to church,
and in the evening, when your work is done, you can go for a drive, or
run in and see the movies. I don't mind telling you there are two
reasons why I'm recommending this car to you. First, I want you to
find out for yourself what miserable roads there are in this county
and why they should be paved with concrete. Second, I want you to make
it so pleasant on the farm for your wife, and later for your children,
that they'll always want to stay there--for we must keep our boys and
girls on the farm if this country is to prosper. The trouble has been
farmers have not realized the old saying, "All work and no play makes
Jack a dull boy." That's why the farms are deserted. There's one
restriction, though, I'm going to place on you, and that is that the
car is never to be run during working hours, except such as your wife
might use it to drive to market, and the car must be sheltered in a
building and kept clean. I don't want to ever see you drive in to town
with a car all covered with mud. Now, if you're willing to do that,
I'll advance you enough money so you'll have a complete outfit.'"

"Well, I suppose you signed up for it," said his mother hopelessly.

"Yes," laughed her son. "I thought I might as well take the automobile
along with the other things, mother."

"H'm!" sniffed his mother. "Joe Williams, I'll give you six months
until the sheriff sells you out. I never thought I'd raise a son who
would turn out to be such a fool," and she burst into tears.

"Now, now, mother, you're all wrong in this matter," said her son,
going over and taking her in his arms. "I'm not doing this simply
because I love Betsy Atwood but because it's good business, and,
besides, I want to make her life pleasant. It's the modern idea,
mother; it's the right way to do, and I think John White is right. The
reason farmers' boys and girls refuse to stay on the old farm is on
account of the few amusements they get. Don't you worry about the
sheriff selling me out, for if I live I can easily make a go of it,
and if I should die suddenly, I've a $10,000.00 life insurance policy
in the Farmers' Mutual that will pay off the mortgage and leave
something for Bettie besides. Of course, it cost something to take out
a policy of $10,000.00; everything of value costs, but an insurance
policy that pays off the mortgage, if I happen to die, relieves me of
all worry. It would have been a risk without insurance, but I feel
safe now."




IX

POWER AND BANKING


Everything was hustle and bustle on the farm on Monday morning, March
twenty-seventh, for this was to be Joe Williams' wedding day.

Bob was up at daylight, milked his cows and finished his chores before
breakfast. At nine o'clock his Uncle Joe and grandparents left for
town, where they would take the ten o'clock train to Greensburg, where
the wedding was to be solemnized at noon.

As previously arranged, Bob stayed on the farm to look after things
and finish plowing the ten-acre field adjoining the barn, which had
been started two days before. It was scarcely nine-thirty when he
turned and started back along the north side of the field. He glanced
in the direction of the barn and beheld an unusual sight. A small
automobile had been driven into the barnyard and close behind it came
the most unusual looking piece of machinery he had ever seen. He
stopped his team and stood leaning on the plow, wondering what it
might be. The driver of the automobile, whom he recognized as John
White, president of the First National Bank, jumped from the car and
opened the gate of the field in which Bob was plowing and a moment
later the machine entered. It crossed the ground he had already plowed
on the west side of the field and entered the furrow; then swung
around with its side toward him. He now recognized the apparatus--it
was a tractor gang plow, and as it went along, he saw it was throwing
up three furrows at a time. As he watched it go he could not help
noticing how much faster it moved than his team of horses was capable
of doing. He was so lost in admiration of the speed and ease with
which the plow did its work that he did not notice the banker coming
toward him until he stood beside him.

"Well, what do you think of that, Bob, for a plow?" asked the banker
laughing.

"Some plow, Mr. White," said Bob, taking off his hat and running his
fingers through his sandy hair, while he still kept his gaze riveted
on the tractor which now turned the southeast corner and started up on
the east side of the field.

"Better turn your team out of the furrow, Bob," advised the banker,
"and let the tractor get ahead of you. I want you to follow it around
the field, so you can see how much faster it travels than your team."
Bob had scarcely turned his team out before the tractor came up
opposite them, and with a wave of the hand and a cheery good morning,
the operator of the machine went by the admiring boy and the smiling
banker.

"Now get your team in behind him, Bob, and see if you can catch him,"
said the banker.

Bob had not gone more than a few rods before it became evident to him
that his team would never overtake the fast-moving tractor. In, fact,
before he had gone half the distance, the tractor was up behind him
again on the second round, so he turned his team out again to let it
go by. This time, however, the operator brought the machine to a stop
and said:

"Come over and have a look at her, young man."

"This is Mr. Patterson, of the Farmers' Harvester Company, Bob, with
their latest model tractor plow. Show him how to operate it,
Patterson," said Mr. White, "and then let him take it around the field
himself."

"Oh, but I couldn't run a piece of machinery like that," protested
Bob.

"Sure you can. That's why we brought it out here," said the banker.

"Oh, no, I'm sure it would be too complicated for me," protested Bob.

"That's where you are mistaken," said the agent, jumping down from the
operator's seat. "Come here and I'll explain the mechanism to you in a
few minutes."

After he had finished, he turned to Bob and said:

"This thing is so simple, it'll run itself, except at the corners,
where you'll have to operate it to turn."

"How do you mean, run itself?" asked the unbelieving boy.

"Well, I'll show you," said the agent, as he adjusted one or two of
the levers, and, much to Bob's astonishment, the tractor set off down
the field by itself.

"Why, how do you do that?" he asked, staring open-mouthed after the
disappearing tractor.

"Come down to the corner and I'll show you," said the agent.

"But I can't leave the team," said Bob.

"Oh, I'll take care of the team," said the banker laughing. "You go
down and operate the plow."

Handing the lines over to the banker, Bob hurried after the agent, who
was racing down the field so as to catch up to the tractor before it
reached the corner. Then he stopped the machine until Bob came up.
"Now, this is how it's done, Bob. You see this self-steering device
down here in the furrow. Well, I set this lever and clamp it over fast
and this self-steering device rubs along the edge of the furrow and
keeps the plow following the furrow. In big fields in the West, where
there's plenty of room and the ground is comparatively level, we
always plow around a circle. There's where we use our big fellers," he
said smiling. "Fourteen plows in a gang and one man can operate all of
them at once."

"You don't mean it," said Bob. "Three or four plows going at once, and
each one plowing fourteen furrows. Why, you would plow a field like
this in less than a day."

"Less than a day," said the agent. "How long will it take you to
finish this field with your team, Bob?"

[Illustration with caption: THE TRACTOR WILL DO THE WORK OF FIVE MEN
AND FIVE TEAMS AND ONLY EATS WHEN IT'S WORKING]

"Well, I expect to get through by noon on Saturday," he replied.

"Well, what do you say if we finish it up by six o'clock tonight?"

"But you couldn't do that, Mr. Patterson!"

"We can't! Well, you just wait till I show you. I want you to get into
the seat and run it yourself, Bob; then you can see how it goes."

The boy climbed awkwardly into the machine and adjusted the levers
according to instructions.

"I'm sure I won't be able to handle it, Mr. Patterson," he said, as he
opened the throttle and the engine started.

"Won't be able to handle it? All you need to do is to sit on the seat
and let it go. Now shove this lever and throw in the clutch,"
suggested the agent, and off the plow started.

"It does run easy," said Bob, as the tractor moved rapidly ahead, the
agent walking alongside, talking to Bob as they went.

"Easy!" remarked the agent. "Why, you can run this machine all day,
Bob, and it won't make you as tired in a whole day as doing your
chores. Now, when you get to the corner put your throttle down and
I'll show you how to make the turn."

Bob was a bit awkward, but finally made the adjustment and got the
plow to a standstill at the corner.

"You see, Bob," said Mr. Patterson, "when you use a gang plow you
don't cut the corners square as you do with a team of horses. You
round them off a bit, then you don't need to take the trouble to turn.
Now, while you plow around, I'll take your team and plow off the
corners."

"You aren't going to let me go around myself, Mr. Patterson?" asked
Bob.

"Certainly, you can run it yourself just as well as anybody," replied
the agent. "After I finish with the team, Mr. White and I have some
business to do. By the way, can we use your telephone, Bob?"

"Sorry, Mr. Patterson, we haven't a telephone yet," stammered Bob. "I
think Uncle Joe'll put one in though when he gets back from his
wedding. You see, he's getting married to-day."

"I know he is," said the agent grinning. "That's why we brought the
tractor out to-day. We wanted to have a good chance when your uncle
wasn't home. When he gets back with his bride, we're going to show him
what power can do to a farm."

"Well, I'll take the car," said Mr. White, "and drive over to the
Wallace farm and use their 'phone. You see, Bob, we're going to have a
little party on your farm. We're going to sort of take possession of
the place and have invited some of your neighbors to see the tractor
work."

"All right," said Bob. "I'll try it out myself, but if I smash this
thing, it won't be my fault."

"Don't worry about smashing it, Bob. Just give her kerosene and keep
her going," said the agent.

After the first round or two, Bob became confident of his ability to
handle the tractor, and began to realize how quickly and easily
plowing could be done by power.

He noticed Mr. White drive back to the barnyard, and as soon as Mr.
Patterson had finished with the team, he unhitched them and took them
over and put them into the barn, then they sat down in the auto and
began to talk, leaving Bob to manage the tractor alone.

When dinner time came he brought the machine to a standstill on the
west side of the field nearest to the barn, and, shutting down the
motor, came quickly over the freshly plowed ground to the barnyard.

"That's certainly a fine way to plow, Mr. White," said Bob, his eyes
sparkling as he contemplated the amount of work done in a quarter of a
day.

"Sure is, Bob," said the banker. "The greatest thing I've ever seen.
Power certainly does beat horse flesh, and you notice, Bob, we only
feed the engine when it is working."

"I can't give you very much of a dinner," said Bob, apologetically,
"for everybody's away at Uncle Joe's wedding, but if you'll be
satisfied with cold victuals, I guess I can fit you out."

"Bread and butter and a glass of milk is good enough for me, Bob,"
laughed the banker, as they started for the house.

Bob's grandmother had left him well supplied with food--several apple
pies, a boiled ham and a weekly baking of bread had been finished the
day before. She had also left the fire in the kitchen stove and the
tea-kettle on, so it didn't take Bob very long to make a pot of
coffee. He brought some butter and milk from the milk cellar and they
were soon enjoying the simple food.

"Bob," said the banker, as he helped himself to a large heel off the
loaf and spread it thick with butter and apple butter, "we thought
we'd give your Uncle Joe a wedding present by doing his spring plowing
for him. We want to surprise him when he comes back, so I arranged
with Mr. Patterson to give a demonstration of his tractor on your
farm. We sent out some invitations last week to a number of farmers
around here, asking them to come here this afternoon, but told them to
keep it quiet so your uncle wouldn't find out anything about it. We're
going to spend the rest of the afternoon giving each fellow a chance
to run the tractor, but to-morrow, just to show you what the tractor
can do, Mr. Patterson is going to take it and disk and harrow your
ten-acre field back of the cider mill, and then the next day we want
you to plow your west bottom field, where your Uncle Joe said he was
going to plant his spring wheat this year."

"When you take charge of the tractor, Bob," said the agent, "we're
going to let you start with the machine in the barnyard, take it to
the field, do the plowing and bring it back again yourself, and unless
you have some bad luck, I don't think I'll have to lay a hand on it.
Of course, I'll be here in case you need me, but I've a notion the
machine will do the trick, without my touching it."

"Why," said Bob a moment later, realizing for the first time what it
would mean to have that much plowing done, "our three fields will all
be finished before Uncle Joe gets back."

"Not three, Bob," corrected the banker, "four, for we're going to plow
your north field, too."

"Isn't that field too hilly for the tractor?" asked Bob.

"No," replied the agent. "I've been looking at it and feel sure we can
manage it, although it's a little steeper than we usually recommend
for tractors, but we want to demonstrate that our machine will take
care of all the fields you have on the farm, with the exception, of
course, of 'Round Top,' which ought to be planted in fruit or
something instead of trying to raise a grain crop."

"When does your Uncle Joe expect to get back, Bob?" asked the banker a
moment later, helping himself to a second piece of pie.

"Thursday afternoon, I think," replied Bob. "They're planning to be
back for Sunday."

"Come to think of it, that's right," said the banker. "I overheard him
tell Henry Smith, who sold him his automobile, to have the car up at
the station to meet the three o'clock train on Thursday. He's
evidently going to bring his bride out in style."

"Can Uncle Joe drive the car already?" asked Bob.

"No, I don't think he's going to try to drive out, not on the first
trip with his bride," replied the banker, "but I think you can look
for them about three-thirty."

"I'd like to be hanging on behind," said Bob, "about the time they
come around the bend in the road by the Wallace Farm, and he sees his
spring plowing all done."

"That's a joke," laughed the banker, "in which we'd all like to share,
Bob, but it won't do him any harm to ride the rest of the distance
home wondering how you managed to get it all done."

When they came out from their dinner they found two farmers had
already arrived and others kept dropping in by ones and twos, so that
before the afternoon was over there were almost two dozen rigs and
automobiles standing around in the barnyard.

Much to his delight, Bob was allowed to drive the tractor, while the
agent stood among the men and explained its workings.

After a round or two, Bob gave up the seat to a neighboring farmer,
who in turn gave way to another, so one by one they tried the tractor.

"Wish he had picked out our farm to demonstrate his plow on," remarked
Alex Wallace, as he watched the space in the center of the field
rapidly getting smaller. "By the time he's through demonstrating he'll
have your field plowed."

"Maybe you could get him to do it for you, Alex," said Bob. "Why don't
you ask him?"

"I've already done that," replied Alex, "but he wants to sell us one."

"Well, are you going to buy one?" asked Bob, as they watched the
tractor work.

"I don't know what father'll do," replied Alex. "Suppose we'll have to
think it over."

When the afternoon sun got low, the banker called the men together in
the barnyard and said:

"There's something I want to say to you men. I know that some of you
are pretty hard pressed for money just now, and don't feel much like
investing in new equipment, but I've recently made a careful survey of
the farming conditions in our county and have taken a trip west to
look over what they're doing out in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and the
Dakotas. In fact, I was gone for four weeks last summer, looking over
the situation generally, and I've come to the conclusion that we've
just as good farms right here in Pennsylvania as they have in any of
the western states--only they've gotten ahead of us out there by
adopting many modern methods. There isn't a thing they do out there,
though, that we can't do right here. Another thing I discovered, and
that was that the banks in the West are very much more liberal to the
farmers than the banks have been in the East. I don't mind telling
you," he said smiling, "that I picked up a number of pointers myself
on how to run a bank and when I got back I talked the matter over with
our board of directors.

"From now on the First National is going to be run on different
principles than we have ever run it before. We're going to do
'Constructive Banking,' which means in plain English that we're going
to help you farmers with liberal loans wherever we find a man who's
progressive and working intelligently. We're fitting up a special room
in the bank that we're going to call our 'Bureau of Farm Information';
we're going to put a capable man in charge of it to answer questions;
we're sending down to the Bureau of Agriculture at Washington for a
lot of farm bulletins on every subject of interest to you men, also to
manufacturers of farm machinery and other appliances that can be used
on the farm. The manufacturers of Portland Cement are fitting us up
with a complete line of literature on farm buildings and how to build
them. In fact, there won't be any information connected with a farm,
its equipment or the construction of farm buildings that we won't be
able to give you. There's some of you men here who don't do your
banking with us--you're just as welcome to the information as the
others. We want you to make this your room when you come to town--it
will be open every day from eight o'clock in the morning until six
o'clock in the evening. There'll be tables there where you can do any
writing you want, and a billboard to stick up notices of anything
you've got for sale. I hope you'll make good use of the Bureau. Tell
your wives we're going to have a special lot of literature for them on
canning and evaporation of fruits and vegetables, raising poultry and
dairy work and bees. Tell them to come in and use the room as much as
they like. We've provided for their comforts."

"Well, it sounds pretty fine, Mr. White," said Billy Waterson,
"especially the loans. I'll be in to see you myself on Saturday."

"Yes, come in, Billy, and tell me about your needs," invited the
banker. "We'll no doubt be able to help you."

The last of the farmers had scarcely gone when Bob's grandparents came
driving up the lane.

"Has any one died, Bob?" asked his grandfather, as soon as he got near
enough to be heard.

"Why?" asked Bob smiling.

"Well, I saw many rigs going down the road as we came by the Wallace
farm. One or two of them, I thought, came out of our lane."

"No," said Bob, "no one's dead, but," with a wave of his hand toward
the newly plowed field, "the old method of plowing with horse flesh
passed away this afternoon."

"I noticed, Bob, as soon as I came around the bend in the road that
the field was plowed, and I was going to ask you about it. How did you
get it done so quickly? Were some of the neighbors over here with
their teams helping you?"

"No," said Bob, "come here a minute and I'll show you something," and
he took his grandfather, who had alighted from the buggy, over to the
wagon shed in which the tractor stood.

"Where'd that come from?" asked his grandfather, looking at it
curiously. "Has Joe gone and bought a tractor, too?"

"No, not yet," laughed Bob, "but I guess he will when he gets back and
sees how much work it can do."

"They must cost a lot of money, Bob," said his grandfather.

"Not as much as you might think," replied Bob, using the phrase he
heard Mr. Patterson use in talking to the farmers that afternoon. "Not
when you take into account how much they can do."

"I should like to have seen it work," said his grandfather interested.

"Well, you'll see it, all right," said Bob, "because Mr. Patterson's
going to plow the other three fields before he leaves."

"How long does he calculate it'll take him to finish, Bob?" inquired
his grandfather.

"He expects to get done by noon on Thursday."

"It can't be done," said his grandfather incredulously.

"Well, he says it can," laughed Bob, "and to-morrow morning you'll
see."




X

RUNNING WATER


Bob was up bright and early the next morning and had his chores all
done by the time Mr. Patterson came back from town, where he had gone
the night before for a supply of kerosene.

As soon as breakfast was over the tractor was driven out to the field
back of the cider mill, and, with the agent in the seat, started off
on its rounds. In this field corn had been raised the year before, and
it would be planted in oats this year, so the plow was omitted and the
double disk and spike-toothed harrow used. Bob and his grandfather
stood for a half hour watching it work, then Bob went to the barn and
got out the team and began plowing the garden, which adjoined the
field in which the tractor was working.

When they knocked off at noon, the relative amount of work done by
each was very apparent, for the ten-acre field was more than half
finished in the same time it had taken Bob to finish less than an acre
of garden patch, and by six o'clock the entire field was completed.

The next day Bob took charge of the tractor and succeeded in doing
almost as well in plowing their west bottom field as Mr. Patterson had
done the day before, although it took him until seven o'clock in the
evening to finish the entire ten acres.

Thursday morning everything on the farm was excitement. Bob started to
clean up the corners of the west field with the plow and team, while
Mr. Patterson started plowing the hilly north field, so that
everything would be finished by the time Bob's uncle arrived. It
seemed to Bob, as he watched the tractor work, that the hilly field
was requiring more time to complete than they had figured, for by noon
the field was not much more than half done, so he asked Mr. Patterson
at dinner if the plow worked slower on hilly ground.

"Of course, Bob, we can't make the time there that we can on the
level, but I've been taking it kind of easy, loafing a little this
morning so the tractor would be working when your uncle comes home
this afternoon."

In this, however, he was disappointed, for the automobile did not
arrive until after five o'clock, an hour after the tractor had been
run into the barnyard, where the agent left it and drove to town in
his auto.

Bob was in the barnyard waiting to greet his aunt and uncle when Henry
Smith drove up. His uncle, however, did not wait until they had
alighted to ask Bob the question which was uppermost in his mind, but
shouted to him as soon as the car swung up the hill into the yard.

"How in the world did you ever get the plowing all done so soon, Bob?"
he called.

Without replying, Bob waved his hand toward the tractor.

"Where'd that come from?" asked his uncle, as he helped his bride from
the auto.

"Oh," laughed Bob, as he stepped forward to shake hands with them,
"that's another of John White's jokes. He's had nearly everybody in
the county out here on the farm while you were away, showing them how
easy it is to plow with power."

"Well, Bob, I don't want your Uncle Joe to get married again soon,"
laughed his new aunt, "but it does seem to have been lucky for him
this time, for you've certainly got more plowing done while he was
away getting married than he'd have gotten if he stayed at home," as,
much to Bob's embarrassment, she suddenly bent over and kissed him.
"Things seem to be moving faster on the farm, Bob, since you and your
Uncle Joe started working together," she laughed, as they all started
for the house.

Bob could not remember any time in his life when he had been quite so
happy as he was that night at supper, sitting in silence opposite his
new aunt, listening to the story of the wedding and honeymoon. There
was something about the frank open smile that she bestowed upon him
from time to time which established her in his confidence, and made
him feel that the coming summer was going to be a very pleasant one.

He wondered what shape the first suggestion for improvement by his
aunt might take, but he didn't have long to wait, for the very next
morning at breakfast she turned to her husband and said:

"Have you figured out yet, Joe, how much pipe it will take to bring
the water from the spring into the house? I think we should arrange
for running water in the kitchen and put in a bathroom, and I have
also been thinking that, instead of using the small room beyond the
kitchen as a pantry, we could do away with that and fit up a washroom,
with a toilet and shower for the men. A farmer is just as much
entitled to a shower after his day's work as a golf player and is even
more benefited by its use. We could easily make a cellar under it for
the hot-water heater and supply hot water to the kitchen, washroom and
the bathroom on the second floor, as well as the laundry. I've been
looking up the cost of plumbing and don't think the whole thing would
cost more than five or six hundred dollars, exclusive of digging the
trench."

When his aunt began to speak, Bob scanned the face of his uncle, and
he noticed that while his uncle smiled and said he would have to look
into the matter, Bob noticed his brow contract in a way that spoke ill
of the project being carried out--at least at the present time.

Now that the plowing had been done, it was decided that they would
spend a few days in cleaning out the fence rows and repairing fences,
and as they were leaving for this work shortly after breakfast, Bob
made a discovery. His aunt came into the woodshed where they were
getting out their mattocks and brush hooks and said:

"There are a few things I wanted to get in town to-day, Joe, so I'll
take the car and drive in."

"Why, you can't drive yet, Bettie," declared her astonished husband.

"Oh, yes, I can," she laughed. "I have my license, too. I learned last
summer. While I'm in town, I'll speak to a plumber about the work, and
I think, too, we should also have a telephone put in. It will be quite
awkward getting along without one."

"All right, Bettie," said her husband. "It will do no harm to get a
price on them, even though we won't get them until fall," and he
kissed her good-by and started for the field.

She certainly doesn't let her ideas get cold, thought Bob, as he
walked along with his uncle, and, after all, it would not cost any
more to put the water in now than it would in the fall, and besides
they'd have the use of it all summer.

That night after the chores were finished and the supper dishes were
put away, his uncle and aunt adjourned to the sitting room, where Bob
noticed a fine reading lamp, surrounded by magazines and farm
bulletins, had been placed in the center of a large oak table.

"Come into the sitting room, Bob," called his aunt, when he returned
to the kitchen after doing his chores. "I want to show you the
pictures of our new bathroom fixtures I got from the plumber to-day."

It was only natural that Bob should have wondered just how far his
aunt and uncle would take him into their confidence in the planning of
the work on the farm, and he was not only relieved but very much
pleased at her early invitation to their conferences, having to do
with improvements and the expenditure of money. He took it as a
compliment to his interest in the farm work, and felt nothing would be
too hard for him to undertake while his Aunt Bettie followed the
results.

"Here's the plumber's estimate, Joe," she said, opening a letter. "He
wants $250 for the bathroom and washroom equipment, including a four-
foot white enamel wash sink with soap dishes and tempering faucets.
You see, by putting in a sink of this sort, the hot and cold water is
mixed as it comes through the faucet, and all the dirty water runs
away so that you can always wash in clean water, which is better than
filling a bowl. This four-foot sink will allow two people to wash at
once. This is the hot-water heater that we will put in the cellar. It
will mean the putting in of a new door and steps on the north side of
the building for taking out the ashes. That will be some concrete work
for you, Bob," she smiled across to him. "The heater will keep the
floor of the washroom warm in winter and prevent the pipes from
freezing. We ought to take out the wood floor of the washroom and put
in a concrete floor, but I think the wood floor will have to answer
until we build our new house. The plumber said he could manage this by
putting in a galvanized iron tray on the floor under the shower and
connecting it to the waste pipes. If you are careful when you use the
shower and not splash the water too much over the wood floor, I guess
we can get along with this arrangement. This, however, doesn't include
the cost of bringing the water down from the spring. I thought,
inasmuch as our plowing and harrowing had been done so soon, you could
take the time off, Joe, to dig the ditch and put in the pipe yourself.
A one-inch galvanized genuine wrought-iron pipe will cost ten cents
per running foot and a two-inch pipe twenty-two cents per foot."

"A one-inch pipe ought to be big enough," said Joe, "to supply all the
water we want."

"Yes, perhaps it would be for the house alone," she replied, "but then
there's the barn and the hen house and the new dairy house to take
into account, besides a watering trough in the barnyard and water
bowls in the new cow barn for each cow, and I think for all these we
really ought to have at least a two-inch pipe, so that the pipe will
be in for all time, and, of course, it would not pay to use steel
pipe--that would rust too quickly. The hard job will be the digging of
the ditch, for the pipe ought to be at least three and a half feet to
four feet underground, so as to be sure it will not freeze up during
the winter."

"Don't you think we ought to build new concrete walls and put a cover
on the spring, Aunt Bettie?" inquired Bob, "so that nothing can get
into the spring to foul the water?"

"That would be a good idea, Bob. Do you suppose you could make a rough
sketch and figure out how much concrete it would take to do that?"

"Why, there's a sketch in one of the concrete bulletins that shows how
that can be done," replied Bob. "I'll get the book right away," he
said.

"Bring your bulletins down to the sitting room and leave them on the
table, Bob," called his aunt, "that is, if you don't mind. Perhaps it
would be well if they were all here so we could all see them."

"All right," said Bob.

He returned a few minutes later and after looking up the suggestion
set to work, and by nine o'clock a rough sketch for enclosing the
spring had been made. It would require thirteen hundred and fifty feet
of two-inch pipe to bring the water to the house, which would cost
$297 and the probable cost of the ditch would be $625. When the
figures were all put together it was found the improvement would mean
an outlay of $1172, if they paid to have the ditch dug, but, of
course, they could save $625, by doing the digging themselves.

"I'd like you to have the water in the house, Bettie," said her
husband, as he rose to retire, much worried at the large amount of
money, "but on top of all the expenditures we have made already, I
don't think it would be possible to put it in at this time."

"Well, we won't decide to-night, Joe," his wife said, smiling. "I
think it is always best to think such matters over carefully before we
undertake them."

All during the next day it was quite evident to Bob that his uncle was
puzzled and worried. On the impulse of the moment he had been
persuaded by John White, president of the First National Bank, to
invest in what he considered a very much larger equipment of live
stock than he would otherwise have done, and he had also allowed White
to persuade him to spend $1500 for the tractor, plow, disk and harrow.
The chances of making the farm earn enough to take care of the
interest on his obligations at the bank and perhaps pay off something
on the principal, looked all right while John White was explaining it,
but now that he had had sufficient time to reflect on the matter, he
felt that perhaps he had overstrained his resources in taking on this
additional financial burden.

It was not the six per cent interest that worried him so much as the
fact that Bettie wanted to spend almost $1200 to repair the house from
which there could be no returns--the cost of which would have to be
earned just the same. He was particularly silent and abrupt with Bob
as they worked upon the fence rows and scolded him severely when he
did not anticipate his wishes in the matter of placing the rails for
the repairs of the fence. He scolded him unmercifully when, through
his eagerness to please him, he happened to drop the sharp corner of a
rail on his uncle's hand. It was in this state of mind that Joe
Williams came in to supper that evening to greet his smiling wife.

Nothing was said during supper about putting in running water and
fitting up a new bathroom, but Bob noticed the roller towel and horn
comb had disappeared and that each had their own towel, brush and
comb. When the supper dishes had been put away, and they had all
adjourned to the sitting room, Bob's aunt opened the drawer in the
sitting-room table and took out several sheets of carefully compiled
figures, which she handed over to her husband.

"What's this, Bettie?" he asked, taking up the papers.

"That, Joe, is an inventory of our assets and liabilities," she
answered smiling.

"Well, does it look as bad as it sounds?" laughed her husband, as he
took up the statement and glanced at it hurriedly. "What's it all
about, Bettie, and why have you been worrying your head with figures
to-day?" he said, placing the papers on the table, without seeming to
comprehend their meaning.

"I've been thinking for several days, Joe, that we should know where
we stand in the matter of the cost of our farm and equipment, so that
we can figure out our possible income and profit. I don't think it
would be wise to go ahead and buy and sell without knowing in advance
the value of everything we own; the amount of money we're obligated
for in the way of loans and have estimated the probable cost of
carrying on the work through harvest, and what our crops and produce
ought to sell for."

ITEM              INVENTORY                      APRIL 15,1916

 Farm, 160 acres .................................... $6,000.00
 Cows:
    10 head @ $175 ................................... 1,750.00
     8 head @ $60 ...................................... 480.00
 Bull, 1 head @ $350 ................................... 350.00
Calves, 4 head @ $10 .................................... 40.00
 Horses:
     2 head @ $350 ..................................... 700.00
     2 head @ $200 ..................................... 400.00
 Hogs:
     5 head @ $40 ...................................... 200.00
     6 head @ $30 ...................................... 180.00
 Sheep, 12 head @ $20 .................................. 240.00
Chickens ................................................ 50.00
Machinery and Tools .................................... 125.00
Automobile ............................................. 440.00
 Feed and Supplies ..................................... 300.00
Growing Crops (Labor and Seed) ......................... 180.00
 Cash .................................................. 110.00
 Bills Receivable ....................................... 75.00
                                                     ----------
 Total Resources ................................... $11,620.00
Mortgage and Bills Payable ........................... 6,000.00
                                                     ----------
 Net Worth........................................... $5,620.00

"I have started with to-day, April 1, 1916, but next year it will be
better to take our inventory so that we can start on March 1st, which
will be just before the spring work starts. Then we can see what our
gain is for the year. We'll have to run separate accounts for all our
crops and stock as well as feed and labor in order to see what the
gain or loss is on any item. After we get them started, it will take
only a few minutes each day to keep them up to date."

"Here, you see," she continued, as she walked around the table and sat
on the arm of his chair, "I've listed the farm at its probable value--
$6000."

"But you have listed it at $2000 more than I paid for it," protested
her husband.

"That's because it's worth $2000 more than when you bought it," she
laughed, "for with the new ditch you have added fifteen tillable acres
and we still have a pond and a better driveway up to the barn. Then,
of course, I've included in the improvements the running water and
bathroom equipment."

"We've not decided to put that in yet," said her husband quickly, to
which she made no reply.

"Then you see, I've listed our stock and equipment at $5520. These
added together make our assets total $11,520. You have already
obligated yourself at the First National Bank for $5400, and when we
get the loan for the running water, it will make a total of about
$6000."

At the mention of a further loan, Bob noticed his uncle's brow
contracting in a way that did not speak well for the installation of
the running water.

"But you're missing the best item of all, Joe," said his wife, "the
sand pit. I was talking to Mr. White about this when I was in town
yesterday, and he feels sure that by the time Mr. Brady gets all the
sand he requires for the railroad work, they will be making concrete
roads throughout the county and that there'll be a big demand for this
pit. While I don't know exactly how big the pit is, I've estimated
that it contains thirty thousand yards. If we figure this at 50 cents
per yard, the price Mr. Brady is paying, it will bring us $15,000."

"But I'm afraid those are only day dreams, Bettie," laughed her
husband good-naturedly; "it couldn't be possible that so much money
could be gotten out of a sand pit."

"Why not?" asked his wife. "In New England there are many large supply
companies who make a business of digging, washing and selling sand and
gravel and carry on a very large business in this material. You have
no idea what a hold concrete is getting on the country these days.
It's such an excellent material in the first place, and besides it's
so cheap and easily handled that any one can build all manner of
structures with it. So you see, Joe," she added, smiling up at him,
"if the farm doesn't pay a penny for an entire year, and we don't sell
any sand besides what Mr. Brady has agreed to take after paying for
the improvements that he is making, we'll still have more than enough
money coming from the sand pit alone to pay the interest on all our
obligations and leave us $2500 to $5000. I know we're going to have
something good from the farm itself, besides. So I'm in favor of not
only putting in running water in the bathroom, but building the new
dairy house at the same time. The cellar under the kitchen here is a
bad place to keep the milk and the work is very much increased on
account of having to carry the ice down there. Besides, the floor is
damp and the place has a musty odor."

"How much will a dairy house cost as you are planning to build it,
Bettie?" asked her husband, looking up hopelessly.

"I don't know exactly, Joe," she replied, glancing across the table at
Bob, "but we've been looking over the bulletins and as near as we can
estimate, it ought not to cost more than $500 for a dairy house alone,
but when we build the new dairy house, I think we should abandon this
old wooden ice house that keeps the yard all mussed up with sawdust--
besides, you have to cut from thirty to fifty per cent, more ice than
we really use in order to provide for the great waste in such a poorly
built house. Now, if we build our ice house in connection with the
dairy house, it will be better protected and the waste will be
practically eliminated. Besides, we can have a refrigerator built in
under the ice to keep butter, meat and poultry, which is something we
don't have now, the way the ice house is built. Get the sketches, Bob,
that you and I were talking over and show them to your uncle," said
his aunt smiling, seeing that she had won her point. As Bob's
grandmother passed through the sitting room on her way to bed that
evening, she saw three heads close together bending eagerly over the
sketches, while Bob and his aunt in turn explained to Joe Williams the
design and advantages of a modern dairy and ice house combined.

"H'm!" she sniffed to herself. "Joe's new wife is certainly starting
in early to spend his money for him. He'll find out it's easier to
spend money than it is to make it, and I'll be glad when I get away
from here so that they can't say I helped to put him in the
poorhouse."




XI

TONY


"Good morning, son--is your uncle around?" inquired Mr. Brady, the
following Monday morning as Bob was getting ready to start work
digging the trench for the new water supply.

"He's in the woodshed now," replied Bob, "but he'll be out here in a
few minutes."

"How do you like the ditch, son?"

"It's a fine job, Mr. Brady," replied Bob. "When are you going to put
in the cement drain tile?"

"They ought to be here to-day and it won't take long to put them in,
once they're here. The digging's all done already. I've a lot of men
coming to-morrow, and I'll make a short job of that and the building
of the dam. What I wanted to see your uncle about was, when's he going
to put a man on at the gravel pit so we can start taking gravel away.
We'll have to screen some sand for face work, but in most cases I
expect to use the sand and gravel together, just as it comes from the
pit."

"Won't you have to measure it out," asked Bob, "to get the right
aggregate?"

"In most cases we would, son," answered the contractor, "but your pit
is running just about right--twice as much gravel as sand, which makes
a very good concrete, so as soon as we get through with the steam
shovel at the dam I want to put it up in the pit and start my trucks
hauling sand to the railroad bridges. The engineer tells me he'll be
ready for me with his lines by the end of the week.

"Oh, good morning, Mr. Williams!" said the contractor, as Bob's uncle
approached. "How about the man to take care of the tickets at the sand
pit?"

"By George, I forgot all about that!" exclaimed Joe Williams. "You'll
have to excuse me, Mr. Brady. I was pretty busy last week with getting
married and everything and forgot all about the man. That reminds me,
John White was speaking to me about a man the other day for some light
work on the farm, but if I can't locate one within, a day or two, I'll
let you put one of your men on."

"All right. I want to begin taking sand away by Monday at the latest,"
said the contractor. "Some activities, Mr. Williams, you're having
around here, what with the steam shovel working in the ditch and a
tractor plow working in the fields. We've had about everybody in the
county stopping here within the last week inquiring what's going on.
I've had a lot of fun out of it, too," he laughed.

"How's that?" inquired Joe Williams.

"Well," said the contractor, winking at Bob, "I told everybody who
asked that we were digging for 'Hidden Treasure,' and do you know,
some of them believed me."

"That's right," said Bob, "we are digging for 'Hidden Treasure,' and
what's more, Mr. Brady, we're finding it."

"I think if I were to stay around with you very long, sonny, you'd be
after making me believe the moon was made of green cheese, as they say
in Ireland, but with you charging me fifty cents a yard for sand, I
know you're making money all right. But you're wasting your time here
on the farm, me boy--it's a contractor you should be."

"I don't agree with you, Mr. Brady. I think farming is the best of
all. Building is interesting, of course, but planting crops and
raising cattle and seeing things grow is the most interesting thing in
the world to me, and I'm going to be a farmer. I like to hear the
birds sing while I'm working."

"Oh, but we've birds singing in the contracting business, too, for
what's sweeter music to the ear than the puffing of a hoisting engine,
or the rattling of the chains of a steam shovel? Music is music the
world over--it's only a matter of education the kind we enjoy most.
Now, to me, the escaping steam is the sweetest music I know, for it
means dollars to me; but I must be looking after me work instead of
standing here blarneying with you all the morning."

"I wish we had your men to dig our trench for the new water supply,
Brady," said Joe Williams.

"How deep do you want it?" asked the contractor.

"About four feet. I guess that's the depth you wanted to make it,
Bob?" he asked turning to his nephew.

"Yes, Uncle Joe," he replied.

"Say, Williams, you're wasting time and good muscle digging that
trench. Let me dig it for you in two days."

"What--in two days!" exclaimed Joe Williams. "You surely couldn't use
your steam shovel for that job, it would be too big and heavy."

"I'll be using no steam shovel, Williams," said the contractor. "I'll
use dynamite."

"Why, how could you do that?" asked Bob, interested at once.

"Sure, my boy, there's many easier ways than digging a trench with a
pick and shovel. I have some dynamite in town now that would be just
the thing to blast out your trench. Of course, it will scatter the
dirt around some, for dynamite is usually used to make an open ditch
rather than one that is to be re-filled, but it will be less work to
gather up the dirt than to dig through the hard shale, and that
reminds me," he continued, "when you come to put in your concrete
fence posts, don't break your back digging holes if you strike hard
shale; just put in a stick of dynamite and loosen her up--you'll find
it will save you lots of backaches."

"How much would it cost, Brady?" asked Joe Williams much interested.
"Let me see," said the contractor. "You, say it's about 1400 feet long
and four feet deep. That will mean putting down 470 holes, three feet
six inches deep, and require 360 pounds of dynamite."

He figured for a moment on a memorandum pad and added:

"I'll do the whole job for $100.00, which is about one-fourth of what
it will cost you to open up the ditch, and I'll complete it in two
days. You may have to level off the bottom of the trench here and
there for the pipe, but at that it will be easier than digging the
entire trench."

"All right, Brady," said Joe Williams; "when will you start?"

"To-morrow morning," said the contractor. "I'll get the dynamite to-
day."

"But isn't dynamite dangerous, Mr. Brady?" asked Bob.

"No, son, not when it's taken care of properly. You know, you don't
set your kerosene oil can on a hot stove, neither do we leave dynamite
around where it is likely to be put off, but it's just as safe as
gunpowder, if you handle it right. You ought to have the ground in
your young orchard loosened up a bit with a few sticks. You'll be
surprised to know how it will improve the production of your trees."

"Does it really improve the land, Mr. Brady?" asked Bob.

"Haven't you read about that, Bob? I thought you were reading
everything about farming."

[Illustration with caption: DITCH DIGGING BY DYNAMITE--ONE-HALF THE
COST--ONE-TENTH THE TIME, AND NO BACKACHE]

"I've read considerable, Mr. Brady, but never anything about dynamite,
but the next time I go to town I'll stop around at the First National
and ask them if they have any literature on dynamite. You know they're
running a 'Constructive Bank' now and distribute literature to the
farmers, and I'm sure John White will have the information."

"That's right, my boy, find out all about it first, and then you'll
know the reason for using it, and how to apply it. Well, I must be
going. I'll take care of the job to-morrow. Good day, Mr. Williams;
good-by, son," he said, as he turned and strode down the hill toward
the new drive where the steam shovel was making fast inroads into the
remaining bank.

"There's one thing I like about Brady, Uncle Joe," said Bob, as they
watched him disappear. "He does things quickly and he does them well.
Did you notice how straight and even the slope of the two sides of the
ditch were made, and how he leveled off the north bank on top?"

"Well, Bob, you know I always like a straight furrow myself," replied
his uncle, "and have always claimed that there isn't a man in the
county can plow a straighter one."

"And there won't be a man in the county next year, Uncle Joe, who can
plow a faster one than you," laughed Bob, "when you get your new
tractor going."

"That certainly was a great piece of work," said his uncle, looking
admiringly at the ploughed fields, "but where can we get a man to look
after the sand pit, Bob? Why not let Brady put on one of his men and
settle it?"

"Don't you think we ought to have a man of our own, Uncle Joe, rather
than take one of his? No doubt, Brady's honest, but he's human.
Suppose he'd forget once in a while to give us some tickets."

"Oh, well, we wouldn't miss a load or two of sand."

"No," said Bob, "but it might get to be a habit with him, and you
know, according to Aunt Bettie's figures, the sand is going to help a
lot in getting our loan paid off quickly at the bank."

"Well, the next time I go to town, I'll see who I can find," he
replied.

"You know, Uncle Joe, if we had a telephone we could call up this
morning and probably have a man out here by noon. Don't you think Aunt
Bettie was right in wanting to have a 'phone?"

"Oh, that's been taken care of," said his uncle. "I told Bettie to go
ahead and have it put in. I thought it would be nice to be able to
call up our friends in town and talk to them on rainy days and Sundays
when we didn't want to drive in. Besides, as you say, it will be
useful at times to save trips."

They spent the morning repairing the fences, which, under their
persistent work, were beginning to look like real fences again.

There was one thing about Joe Williams--whatever he did, he did
thoroughly, and the undergrowth was cut from both sides, heaped into
piles and burned.

"Do you know, Uncle Joe, if we had wire fences, on concrete posts,
we'd never have any work like this to do each spring. The plows would
keep the sides clean. Think of what it would mean, Uncle Joe, to get
rid of fence rows and repairing old rail fences. Then there's the
wasted land that the fence takes up; that's a dead loss."

"Yes, I can easily see that," replied his uncle. "Bettie was talking
about that last night."

They had worked all morning and were on their way to the house to
dinner when they saw a man coming across the fields toward them. He
came from the direction of the farm above, and as he approached they
saw he was a youthful foreign-looking chap--probably an Italian and
not more than twenty or twenty-one years old. He carried a bundle at
the end of a stout stick thrown across his shoulder, and when he had
gotten within speaking distance, he called:

"Good-a morn! Do you need-a da mase or-a da carpendero to do-a da
work?"

"Oh, you're one of the plumber's men?" asked Bob, thinking perhaps his
aunt might have asked to have some men sent out to work on the new
cellar under the washroom where the hot-water heater was to go.

"No, I no-a da plumb. I-a da mase and-a da carpendero."

"Oh, you want a job?" asked Bob, catching his meaning.

"Yes-a, da job, but no-a work-a da field. I no-a da farmer--I-a da
mase and-a da carpendero."

Bob exchanged glances with his uncle, who shook his head.

"What's your name?" he asked, suddenly turning to the applicant.

"Tony."

"What do you say, Uncle Joe, if we have Tony go down to the house with
us and talk the matter over with Aunt Bettie? He might be the man we
could use at the sand pit. Besides," he added suddenly, "he might be
the very fellow to help build the dairy house--if he understands both
carpentry and mason work, he would be a big help."

"How much will you work for?" asked Joe Williams, who hesitated at
paying any money in wages.

"How much-a da work to do?" asked Tony.

"Oh, we've enough for a week or a month--maybe more--that's if you can
do our work."

"I understand-a da work," replied Tony, "and I like-a da live in-a da
country, if you no-a make-a me sleep in-a da barn."

"Where do you come from?" asked Bob.

"From Italia. My fader, he-a da contracdisto and I learn-a da mase
and-a da carpendero."

"Well, why didn't you stay in Italy?" asked Bob.

"Oh," he said, shrugging his shoulders, "there no-a da mon in-a da
Italia and too-a much da hard work."

So asking questions and listening to Tony's answers the three reached
the house, where Bob quickly explained the matter to his aunt. She
came out and asked Tony to stay and have dinner with them. He was
given a basin and towel and after he had made his toilet his
appearance was decidedly improved.

"He says he doesn't want a job," remarked Joe Williams to his wife,
when they were alone after dinner, "if he has to sleep in the barn."

"Well, I don't blame him," said Bettie. "What's the matter with our
south room? Your father and mother are moving to town to-morrow, and
you know we won't have use for all the rooms in the house. The south
room has a separate stairway leading from the small sitting room on
the first floor. We could give him those rooms and make him
comfortable. I rather like his appearance," she added. "Of course,
Italians are foreigners and they're about as awkward in our country
trying to speak our language as we would be if we were in their
country trying to speak Italian. How much does he want to work for
us?"

"He didn't say, but I'll ask him," and they adjourned to the porch.

"How much money would you want, Tony?" asked Joe Williams, "to work
for us, say by the month?"

"Where I-a da sleep?" asked Tony quickly.

"In that room up there on the second floor, at the end of the porch."

"And where I-a da eat?" he asked again.

"Why, with us, of course," said Joe Williams.

"Then I stay-a da mont and do-a da work, and when I get-a da through,
we make-a da barg. If you like-a my work and I like-a da place, then I
stay, but if you no-a like me and I no-a like you, then I go."

"All right," laughed Joe Williams, "that's a bargain, Tony. Do you
want to begin work right away?"

"Yes, I no like-a da loaf," said the man, shrugging his shoulders.

"All right, come around here and I'll show you what we want done," he
said and took him around behind the house, showed him where to dig out
and build a new entrance to the cellar under the washroom and put in a
flue for the heater.

Bob was much interested in the making of the trench for the new water
system, and while his uncle went to town for the pipe and some pipe
tools for laying it, Bob, at Brady's direction, plowed two deep
furrows, six feet apart, outlining the two edges of the trench. He
plowed each furrow a foot or more deep, so as to outline the edges of
the trench and keep the top as narrow as possible. The contractor's
foreman and his gang quickly drove their iron bars into the earth
three feet six inches deep and about three feet apart and loaded the
holes as they went. When they had fifty charges in place, the foreman
connected up the battery, and when the men were out of the way he
raised the rack bar of the battery to its full height and shoved it
down hard. Up came the earth and a neat open trench four feet deep and
one hundred and fifty feet long lay open before them.

By the time his uncle had returned, over half the length of the trench
had been made and was ready for the pipe.

Dynamite certainly is a quick means for doing a hard job, thought Bob,
and he immediately decided to learn more about its uses.

Bob was surprised and pleased to see how quickly and easily Tony could
lay out and execute a piece of work. It was no time at all until the
excavation was done, the wall was cut through for a door opening and
the forms made for concrete steps to lead down into the new cellar.
Fortunately, they found that the foundation went down low enough to
give them the five-foot head room they needed for the hot-water
heater. The hardest work was to connect the flue opening to a flue in
the old chimney, which they found had been built up solid with
masonry. This made it necessary to take the plaster off back of the
chimney and cut a groove. Either by instinct or accident, Tony located
a flue, and before the end of the week they not only had the doorway
and flue completed, but had laid a cement floor on the cellar as well.
Tony showed Bob how to mix the concrete and put it in place so as to
get a smooth surface, and explained why it was necessary, in building
steps and other concrete work, that it should all be put in at one
time and smoothed off as soon as it became sufficiently hard so it
would not crack.

The morning after Tony's arrival, Bob's grandparents said good-by to
the old homestead and were taken in the auto to town. Bob's uncle
drove the car, and, as it got under way, Bob overheard his grandmother
remark:

"Too many new-fangled notions, Joe. You'll surely go to the poorhouse
before you're through."

"All right, mother," he laughingly replied. "If we do, we'll go on
rubber tires and perhaps over concrete, and the road won't seem so
rough."

Thomas Williams and his wife had spent their entire lives in the
country and moving to town did not mean for them a regular town house
and lot, they'd be too cramped to end their days that way. They had
purchased a comfortable house, surrounded by a four-acre garden and
orchard, all in good repair, and here, as compared with the farm, the
work would be light indeed.

After making his parents comfortable in their new home, Joe Williams
drove out to meet his new purchases, which were being delivered that
day. He met the cavalcade two miles out and accompanied them home.

[Illustration: ONE-HALF THE HERD, HE WILL EARN HIS INITIAL COST IN
THREE YEARS]

"Looks like a circus parade, Aunt Bettie," declared Bob, as they stood
on the hill back of the barn and saw them winding up the lane. First
came the team of black Belgian mares, then the ten Holstein cows, with
the bull leading his herd, then a wagon with the five Berkshire sows
in a pen, on top of which were the incubator and brooder, and on top
of these again the coops with the white leghorn and white rock
chickens. Then came another wagon with the bee hives, and following
this the small flock of Southdown sheep, looked after by a fine collie
dog, and last of all came Joe Williams in his new auto, smiling like
the king he felt himself to be.

It was an impressive sight to see this procession of fine-blooded
stock arrive at the farm, and the eyes of both Bob and his aunt were
glistening when they looked at each other as the procession came up
the new road into the barnyard.

"Well, what do you think of them, Bettie?" called her husband, jumping
from his auto and kissing her. "Almost like a circus procession. Hey,
Bob, show them where you want your bees. Better take them right over
to the orchard and set them up where you intend to keep them this
summer."

"I've got a place already fixed for them," he replied. Then as Tony
came near he called, "Do you understand how to talk to Italian bees,
Tony?"

"Yes, I know-a da bees and-a da bees know-a me--no-a sting," said
Tony.

"All right," said Bob, "come with us," and they climbed up on the
wagon and drove across the meadow to the new apiary.

They placed the hives on the cinder foundation Bob had made for them
under the trees and when they were all placed they looked very
attractive in their white paint.

"I'm sorry I didn't buy them myself," said the driver of the wagon,
who had been a farm hand for the former owner. "They're the greatest
honey-makers I ever saw. But I didn't have any place to take them, so
I had to let them go. You're a lucky boy--you got them for a song, but
do you know how to handle them?" he inquired. "You'll have to look out
for them now very carefully, or you may lose them. The spring is the
time they require watching so they don't starve."

"I've been reading up a lot about them," said Bob. "But what's in that
box?" he asked, as the driver unloaded his last piece--a large box
like a tool chest.

"These are your things for handling them, Bob--a smoker, a veil, some
tools and a lot of extra parts and things. If you want me to, I'll
come out the first nice warm day and help you look them over. I'm not
afraid of them. Call up my sister on the 'phone, 770, and tell her
when you want me. My name's John Adams."

"Yes, I will," said Bob, "and I'll pay you for your time, too, for
while I've read some, I've had no actual experience with bees."

"Well, to-night, after sundown, take the blocks from the entrance and
let them fly around in the morning. You may lose a colony or two until
you learn how to handle them, but you needn't worry; they're good
breeders and will soon make up for that--but be sure and keep the
hives cool in hot weather, then they won't swarm so quickly."

When they got back to the house all the new cattle and other stock had
been put away, and the men were ready to return home. That night
before setting the new chickens at liberty, Bob caught and killed the
two remaining Dunghill roosters.

It was a tired but happy family that went to bed at ten o'clock that
night, instead of the regular hour of nine.

It seemed to Bob that he had just closed his eyes when bedlam broke
loose. His first thought was of the new stock, then of the dynamite,
but as he sat up in bed he realized it could not be either of them--
so, throwing up his window, he looked out.

In the moonlight he could distinguish many of their neighbors, who
were armed with everything from sleigh bells to horse fiddles, and the
racket they made in the stillness of the night seemed greater than any
noise he had ever heard. As he raised his window, a shout went up, the
neighbors thinking it was Bob's uncle, but seeing their mistake they
redoubled their efforts and kept the racket going for a half hour or
more. Then his aunt and uncle appeared, and invited the party into the
house, where the lamps were already lighted.

Congratulations were extended, a hasty lunch was set out, the cider
barrel tapped and a general good time enjoyed for an hour or more.

Many of the boys had been former pupils of the bride and they were
happy that she had chosen to come and live among them.

Joe Williams disappeared for a moment and when he returned he carried
a large bottle of wine with a long blue ribbon tied to it.

"Boys," he said, when the cheering had stopped, "you all know that
with the exception of cider, I never drink anything."

"Oh, don't let that worry you, Joe, we're not so modest," they
shouted, but he only held up his hand for silence.

"This bottle of wine was given to us by a very good friend for a
certain purpose. We had intended to wait until later to use it, but I
don't know any better time than just now, when our friends are all
here to carry out our plans, so come out into the yard a moment," and
they all adjourned to the front yard.

Here Joe Williams and his bride stepped over to a young apple tree and
handing her the bottle, he tied the ribbon to a limb.

"Now, boys, Bettie and I've decided to give our farm a name and sell
our produce under that name--a sort of a trade-mark or standard of
merit, so now while you're all here, we'll perform the ceremony."

Taking the bottle firmly in both hands, the bride stepped back,
stretching the ribbon tight, then with a light shining in her eyes
that was not a reflection of the moon, she called in a clear voice, "I
christen you 'Brookside Farm,'" and sent the bottle crashing against
the tree amid the cheers of the crowd.

When silence had been partly restored, a man was seen mounting the
steps of the porch, and holding a stout stick in his hand, he placed
one end of the stick against his lips and there floated out upon the
stillness of the night the old familiar air, "Home, Sweet Home." When
he had finished there were many shining eyes in the crowd, but only
Bob recognized in the disappearing figure his new friend Tony, whose
natural artistic nature had been responsible for such a fitting
tribute.

When the boys had all gone home, Bob's aunt called him to the kitchen.

"Take this up to Tony and thank him for me for the very fine touch he
added to our ceremony," and she handed him a plate heaped high with
cake, alongside of which his uncle set a large goblet of their rare
old elder-berry wine--a mark of distinction conferred by his uncle
only upon honored guests.




XII

THE DAIRY HOUSE


While his uncle planted the oats Bob and Tony laid the water pipe in
the new trench, the plumbers put in the new fixtures and laid a sewer
to the new cess pool. A couple of sticks of dynamite prepared the hole
for the latter, which was later walled up by Tony with large loose
stone and covered over with a concrete slab--later on when they built
the new house they would put in a concrete septic tank, but for the
present this cess pool would answer. After laying the water pipe, they
borrowed a scoop from Brady and gathered up enough dirt to fill the
trench.

Tony and Bob now built the concrete enclosure around the spring. An
inch pipe connection for a future water trough was put in each field
crossed by the trench, and a valve placed on the line well under
ground to prevent freezing.

By using a section of two-inch pipe set vertically over the valve,
they could open and close the valve with a long-stemmed wrench.

By the end of the week all was completed, and there was running water
in the house.

Saturday arrived and they had found no one to look after the pit. They
were discussing the matter and wondering whom they could get, when
Alex Wallace came over to see Bob about some sand they needed to build
a new wall under their barn.

"You don't happen to know of any one we could get to look after our
sand pit, do you, Alex?" asked Joe Williams, as Alex came up.

"Would it be heavy work, Joe?" asked Alex.

"No, it would be an easy job--just taking a ticket from the drivers of
the trucks for every load they take away, and making concrete fence
posts between times.

"Then I've the very man for you," replied Alex; "my father's brother,
Duncan Wallace. He's a Scot, like my father, and was a stone-cutter,
but the stone dust got into his lungs and he came to the country to
see if he couldn't get better. He isn't very strong, but he could do
any kind of light work."

"How much would he want to work for us, Alex?" asked Joe Williams.

"I'm sure I don't know," he replied. "I'll bring him over this evening
and you can talk to him yourself. I want to get a couple of loads of
sand, Bob," he said, addressing the latter. "How much will you charge
me?"

"Fifty cents a yard, Alex--cash or work," replied Bob. "If you'd
rather work it out than pay the money, we'd be glad to have the work.
You can do the work in your spare time."

"What would the work be?" asked Alex.

"The first job," said Bob, looking inquiringly at his uncle, "is
digging a row of fence post holes along the main road to fence in our
property. We want to put in concrete fence posts and a wire fence
along the main road. After that's up we'll have lots of other fencing
to be done."

"How much will you want an hour for your time, Alex?" asked Joe
Williams.

"Well, about thirty cents," replied Alex.

"All right, we'll put you down for thirty cents an hour, you to work
as many hours as will be required to pay for whatever sand and gravel
you get. Of course, you can do the work whenever you have the spare
time. We'll stake out the post holes and show you the size we want
them dug. You must always let us know when you're going to work,
though, so we can keep account of your time and give your credit."

"All right," said Alex, "when can I get the sand?"

"Monday morning," said Bob, "and your uncle can keep account of how
much you get."

On Monday morning Joe Williams took the new team and went to town for
a wagon-load of Portland cement. The few bags they had in the shed
were all used up in the repairs around the spring and cellar. As it
had been decided at the conference with John White, the banker, on
Saturday, to build a new concrete dairy house and ice house, equipped
with running water, it was necessary to lay in a new supply of cement.

Bob looked up the cement bulletins on the handling of concrete, and
found that cement should be put in a shed piled on planks raised above
the floor, and that the shed should have a tight roof. The only
building that would answer these conditions was the wagon shed, and
after considering the matter, he decided that by moving the wagons
around a bit he could get a space at one end near the door that could
be used for this purpose.

He got some old timbers eight inches thick, and six feet long, and
laid them on the ground four feet apart, and on top of these he put
some two by ten plank, and by the time his uncle returned with the
first load he had a platform ready to receive the cement.

"It's very important, Uncle Joe, to keep the cement dry and up from
the ground so it won't set before we use it, for the first bag in, you
know, will be the last bag out, and cement costs too much to lose any
of it."

As soon as dinner was over, Joe Williams went back to town for another
load, hauling it up the new road, same as the first load.

"I tell you, Bob, it's a lot easier to bring a load up the new road
than it was up the old one. If the main road wasn't so rough, I could
haul even more. I can see that John White's argument for concrete
roads is a good one. I'm going to talk it up to the farmers around
here and see if we can't get them together and build the new road this
summer. I was talking to one of the County Commissioners to-day and he
says they are in favor of it, but they want the owners of the
adjoining farms to ask to have the road built. The Commissioners are
politicians, you know, and don't want to do anything that will lose
them votes. It's going to take three days to haul out the cement we
require for the new dairy house with such rough roads. By the way,
Bob," his uncle continued, "John White wants you to come to town with
me to-morrow and show him the kind of a dairy house we're planning to
build. He says he's anxious that it shall be a model that can be
copied by other farmers. I told him you didn't have much of a drawing,
but he said that he was sure if you took in the sketches you have, you
would be able to explain the construction to him so he could
understand it."

The next day as they drove along they talked of the improvement on the
farm and the profit they ought to be able to earn with the new
equipment. Bob was the optimist and his uncle the pessimist in these
discussions, but optimistic Bob was not without his pencil and
memorandum book and usually had the better of the argument because of
his uncle's disinclination to take the time to figure out the
advantages and disadvantages of the schemes.

As soon as they arrived in town, Bob went around to the First National
Bank to see the president, while his uncle stopped at the supply yard
for another load of cement.

"Hello, Bob," greeted the banker, as he entered. "I hear you've put on
some help at the farm to build some of those modern buildings you've
been telling me about. Thought I'd like to know what you're doing. Got
your plans with you?"

"They aren't very much of plans, Mr. White," explained Bob. "I'm not
much of an architect, but maybe you can understand them."

"Bring them into the directors' room, Bob, where we can look them over
without interruption," he said, and Bob for the third time was
privileged to occupy this room.

"The first thing I want to know," said the banker, "is how you found
the size dairy house you needed. Did you figure it out, Bob, or just
look up some catalogs and pick one out that pleased you?"

"No, Mr. White," replied Bob, "Aunt Bettie and I decided first on the
size of the dairy herd. We thought that twenty cows would be as many
as we would be able to take care of on a farm of the size of ours, if
we do general farming. We have used a twenty-cow herd as the basis of
our calculations. We found by reading the recommendations in the
Government's bulletins, that in order to keep a dairy of good milk
cows, it would be necessary to take care of five calves and five
yearling heifers, and an old and a young bull in order to keep the
herd up to maximum production. We figure that a herd of twenty
Holstein cows ought to average two hundred quarts of milk daily. This
would mean ten twenty-quart cans to take care of the milk, and,
allowing for the ice, would require a trough nine feet by two feet six
inches by two feet. If we separate the cream, of course, it wouldn't
require such a large trough. But we used this as a basis of the dairy
requirements. Then we found by looking up another Government bulletin
that it would take about twenty tons of ice to take care of this milk,
but we need ice around the farm for other things, too, so we decided
to make the icehouse large enough for thirty tons. Aunt Bettie and I
read all the bulletins we could get from the Government and then we
looked up the different ones sent out by the Portland cement
manufacturers, but we found they didn't exactly agree; besides, we
felt that if we could build the icehouse inside of the dairy, the ice
wouldn't melt so fast, so we've decided to make a combination building
like this," he said, as he laid his plans before the banker. "We're
going to put this building back of the woodshed where it will join the
new cow barn."

"But isn't a twenty-cow herd pretty large for one man to handle, Bob?"
asked the banker.

"No, Mr. White, you can get a two-unit milking machine now that will
milk twenty to twenty-five cows in one hour and give a ninety-eight
per cent. efficiency."

"How much will that cost, Bob?"

"We can get a complete two-unit outfit consisting of pump, air tanks,
two milking units, installed in the barn, complete for $450."

"But you've only ten cows, now, Bob. Wouldn't that be too large for
them?"

[Illustration: THE ELECTRIC MILKER SOON PAYS FOR ITSELF]

[Illustration: COMFORTABLE SANITARY STALLS OF CONCRETE WITH WOOD
BLOCKPAVING ON FLOOR. RUNNING WATER AND PLENTY OF SUNSHINE ASSURE A
HEALTHY AND CONTENTED HERD]

"No, Mr. White, the outfit is designed for from ten to twenty-five
cows, and will do the milking twice as fast as by hand."

"That's right, Bob; put in machinery and cut down help. Let's see,
that would save at least two hours a day for one man at, say thirty
cents an hour, or $219 per year. You say the complete outfit costs
$450, which amount at six per cent, interest would mean $27, or a
saving of $192. Quite a saving, Bob."

"Have you laid out a general scheme for all your buildings?" asked the
banker, much interested.

"Yes," replied Bob. "Aunt Bettie and I have figured out the size and
location of all the new buildings we'll need for the farm. Here they
are on this drawing," and he produced his general layout. "Of course,
you know, Mr. White, we won't get them all at once, but we want to
build each one as we go, so that it will be part of a definite scheme.
Aunt Bettie says we mustn't make any mistakes in the placing of our
buildings." "What does your Uncle Joe say about all these plans?"
asked the banker.

"Well, Uncle Joe isn't very much interested just now, Mr. White. He
thinks we're planning to spend too much money, but Aunt Bettie says it
isn't so much the amount of money we spend, as the way in which it is
spent that requires the planning."

"That's right," said the banker. "Do your thinking first and your
building afterward, and then you won't have a lot of mistakes to work
with all your life. I like the way you've laid these buildings out,
Bob. You must have read a lot to get this idea. Where did you say the
new hen house is to go?"

"Over here behind the cow barn. You see, Mr. White, our present
buildings are all built facing the wrong way. We don't get the right
exposure. Besides, Aunt Bettie and I think that the new house should
set out where the old barn is at the present and the new barn should
be out in the orchard back of the smokehouse. The trees in this
orchard are old anyway, and it is about time they were cut down. That
would make a good layout for all the buildings and have them
conveniently connected. You see the new driveway comes up in the yard
between the house and the barn, where it ought to be. That will make
the general entrance to the house toward the barn and a garden
entrance toward the main road."

"That's right, Bob; I'm glad to hear you talk about gardens. I think
the finest thing on a farm, outside of making a profit," he added
smiling, "are flowers."

"Well, the flowers are Aunt Bettie's idea," said Bob. "She says
they've many nice gardens in New England, and that she wants to have
one out here, and, of course, you know that'd be the southwest
exposure, and just the place for a flower garden."

"What's this dotted line for, Bob?" asked the banker, pointing with
his lead pencil.

"Oh, that's the water supply pipe from the spring on 'Old Round Top',"
said Bob. "You see, we're planning to carry the water into all the
buildings, so it won't be necessary to take the stock out to water in
the winter. Of course, when we build the cow barn, we'll put in
individual water bowls for each cow. Aunt Bettie and I are reading up
on dairy barns now and when we come to build that we don't want any
mistakes. We want it just as good and practical as it can be made, yet
not too expensive."

"After you get the dairy house up, Bob, what's the next building
you're going to build?"

"We want to build the hen house next, Mr. White," said Bob, "but it's
a good deal of work for just Tony and I, working by ourselves, even
though we do get up early in the morning. Besides, it'll soon be
planting time and Uncle Joe will need me in the corn field."

"I was thinking of that, Bob," said the banker thoughtfully, tapping
the table with the end of his pencil. "I wonder why it wouldn't pay
your Uncle Joe to put on a man to help him and let you look after the
buildings."

"Oh, but he couldn't afford that. Besides, I like to work at planting,
too," replied Bob hastily. "Yes, that's so," said the banker, "but I
think I told you, Bob, I want to see your Uncle Joe's farm a model
one, and I don't want him to spend three or four years in fixing it
up. Of course, the other farmers won't do theirs quite so quickly;
they don't have sand pits on their farms, but there's so much to do to
get these old farms on a paying basis that I want to see your uncle's
farm finished up completely by the end of this year."

"But I'm sure Uncle Joe couldn't afford to go ahead with all the
buildings, Mr. White," replied Bob in alarm, "and while Aunt Bettie
and I would like to see them put up and have all the improvements made
without waiting so long, it would cost a lot of money."

"Have you any idea, Bob, what these buildings will cost?" asked the
banker a moment later.

"Not exactly, Mr. White, although we've made up some figures, using
the prices given in the bulletins, and trying to figure out the cost
of the concrete work ourselves. We think that the dairy house will
cost $450; the hen house $1000; the cow barn $1500, and the main barn
$2000. Then there's the new piggery and the concrete feeding floor
that goes with it. The barn, of course, will have one or two silos--we
haven't decided yet which will be best--and we want to put in a manure
pit with a carrier system. And I want to make some concrete shelters
for my bee hives. Then, of course, we'll need some equipment, such as
a corn harvester and machine for filling the silos--these will cost
about $500. We ought to have a new machinery shed to keep all the
farming implements in, and I've been telling Uncle Joe we also need a
shop with a forge for blacksmith work and some iron-working tools for
making repairs to the farming implements, also a small carpenter shop.
I want Tony to make some new bee hives for me during the winter. Say,
you ought to hear Tony play, Mr. White," said Bob suddenly.

"Why, what does he play?" asked the banker.

"A flute," said Bob. "You just ought to hear him. He plays the nicest
music I ever heard."

"Does he sing, too?" inquired the banker, interested.

"Yes, but it's in Italian and I don't understand what it's all about,
except it's mostly about a bull fighter--he calls him a Toreador. You
ought to hear him when we're out back of the barn some morning. He not
only sings, but he acts it, too. He sticks the pitchfork into the
straw stack, like as if it's a bull, and makes you believe he's
killing it with a sword."

"That's from the opera Carmen," laughed the banker, at Bob's
description of the Toreador Song. "Well, I guess he must be a man of
some education if he can sing that. You better keep him around the
place, Bob, if you can. But, coming back to the ques

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