THE HIRED MAN
Modern farming is greatly handicapped by the difficulty of getting good
help. I need not go into the causes which have operated to bring about
this condition; it exists, and it has to be met. I cannot hope to solve
the problem for others, but I can tell how I solved it for myself. I
determined that the men who worked for me should find in me a
considerate friend who would look after their interests in a reasonable
and neighborly fashion. They should be well housed and well fed, and
should have clean beds, clean table linen and an attractively set table,
papers, magazines, and books, and a comfortable room in which to read
them. There should be reasonable work hours and hours for recreation,
and abundant bathing facilities; and everything at Four Oaks should
proclaim the dignity of labor.
From the men I expected cleanliness, sobriety, uniform kindness to all
animals, cheerful obedience, industry, and a disposition to save their
wages. These demands seemed to me reasonable, and I made up my mind to
adhere to them if I had to try a hundred men.
The best way to get good farm hands who would be happy and contented, I
thought, was to go to the city and find men who had shot their bolts and
failed of the mark; men who had come up from the farm hoping for easier
or more ambitious lives, but who had failed to find what they sought and
had experienced the unrest of a hand-to-mouth struggle for a living in a
large city; men who were pining for the country, perhaps without knowing
it, and who saw no way to get back to it. I advertised my wants in a
morning paper, and asked my son, who was on vacation, to interview the
applicants. From noon until six o'clock my ante-room was invaded by a
motley procession--delicate boys of fifteen who wanted to go to the
country, old men who thought they could do farm work, clerks and
janitors out of employment, typical tramps and hoboes who diffused very
naughty smells, and a few--a very few--who seemed to know what they
could do and what they really wanted.
Jack took the names of five promising men, and asked them to come again
the next day. In the morning I interviewed them, dismissed three, and
accepted two on the condition that their references proved satisfactory.
As these men are still at Four Oaks, after seven years of steady
employment, and as I hope they will stay twenty years longer, I feel
that the reader should know them. Much of the smooth sailing at the
farm is due to their personal interest, steadiness of purpose, and
cheerful optimism.
William Thompson, forty-six years of age, tall, lean, wiry, had been a
farmer all his life. His wife had died three years before, and a year
later, he had lost his farm through an imperfect title. Understanding
machinery and being a fair carpenter, he then came to the city, with
$200 in his pocket, joined the Carpenter's Union, and tried to make a
living at that trade. Between dull business, lock-outs, tie-ups, and
strikes, he was reduced to fifty cents, and owed three dollars for room
rent. He was in dead earnest when he threw his union card on my table
and said:--
"I would rather work for fifty cents a day on a farm than take my
chances for six times as much in the union."
This was the sort of man I wanted: one who had tried other things and
was glad of a chance to return to the land. Thompson said that after he
had spent one lonesome year in the city, he had married a sensible woman
of forty, who was now out at service on account of his hard luck. He
also told of a husky son of two-and-twenty who was at work on a farm
within fifty miles of the city. I liked the man from the first, for he
seemed direct and earnest. I told him to eat up the fifty cents he had
in his pocket and to see me at noon of the following day. Meantime I
looked up one of his references; and when he came, I engaged him, with
the understanding that his time should begin at once.
The wage agreed upon was $20 a month for the first half-year. If he
proved satisfactory, he was to receive $21 a month for the next six
months, and there was to be a raise of $1 a month for each half-year
that he remained with me until his monthly wage should amount to
$40,--each to give or take a month's notice to quit. This seemed fair to
both. I would not pay more than $20 a month to an untried man, but a
good man is worth more. As I wanted permanent, steady help, I proposed
to offer a fair bonus to secure it. Other things being equal, the man
who has "gotten the hang" of a farm can do better work and get better
results than a stranger.
The transient farm-hand is a delusion and a snare. He has no interest
except his wages, and he is a breeder of discontent. If the hundreds of
thousands of able-bodied men who are working for scant wages in cities,
or inanely tramping the country, could see the dignity of the labor
which is directly productive, what a change would come over the face of
the country! There are nearly six million farms in this nation, and four
millions of them would be greatly benefited by the addition of another
man to the working force. There is a comfortable living and a minimum of
$180 a year for each of four million men, if they will only seek it and
honestly earn it. Seven hundred millions in wages, and double or treble
that in product and added values, is a consideration not unworthy the
attention of social scientists. To favor an exodus to the land is, I
believe, the highest type of benevolence, and the surest and safest
solution of the labor problem.
Besides engaging Thompson, I tentatively bespoke the services of his
wife and son. Mrs. Thompson was to come for $15 a month and a
half-dollar raise for each six months, the son on the same terms as the
father.
The other man whom I engaged that day was William Johnson, a tall, blond
Swede about twenty-six years old. Johnson had learned gardening in the
old country, and had followed it two years in the new. He was then
employed in a market gardener's greenhouse; but he wanted to change from
under glass to out of doors, and to have charge of a lawn, shrubs,
flowers, and a kitchen garden. He spoke brokenly, but intelligently, had
an honest eye, and looked to me like a real "find." Polly, who was to be
his immediate boss, was pleased with him, and we took him with the
understanding that he was to make himself generally useful until the
time came for his special line of work. We now had two men engaged (with
a possible third) and one woman, and my _venire_ was exhausted.
Two days later I again advertised, and out of a number of applicants
secured one man. Sam Jones was a sturdy-looking fellow of middle age,
with a suspiciously red nose. He had been bred on a farm, had learned
the carpenter's trade, and was especially good at taking care of
chickens. His ambition was to own and run a chicken plant. I hired him
on the same terms as the others, but with misgivings on account of the
florid nose. This was on the 19th or 20th of July, and there were still
ten days before I could enter into possession. The men were told to
report for duty the last day of the month.