Chapter 2

"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.