WE TAKE POSSESSION
My barn was full of horses, but none of them was fit for farm work; so I
engaged a veterinary surgeon to find three suitable teams. By the 25th
of the month he had succeeded, and I inspected the animals and found
them satisfactory, though not so smooth and smart-looking as I had
pictured them. When I compared them, somewhat unfavorably, with the
teams used for city trucks and delivery wagons, he retorted by saying:
"I did not know that you wanted to pay $1200 a pair for your horses.
These six horses will cost you $750, and they are worth it." They were a
sturdy lot, young, well matched, not so large as to be unwieldy, but
heavy enough for almost any work. The lightest was said to weigh 1375
pounds, and the heaviest not more than a hundred pounds more. Two of the
teams were bay with a sprinkling of white feet, while the other pair was
red roan, and, to my mind, the best looking.
Four of these horses are still doing service on the farm, after more
than seven years. One of the bays died in the summer of '98, and one of
the roans broke his stifle during the following winter and had to be
shot. The bereaved relicts of these two pairs have taken kindly to each
other, and now walk soberly side by side in double harness. I sometimes
think, however, that I see a difference. The personal relation is not
just as it was in the old union,--no bickerings or disagreements, but
also no jokes and no caresses. The soft nose doesn't seek its neighbor's
neck, there is no resting of chin on friendly withers while half-closed
eyes see visions of cool shades, running brooks, and knee-deep clover;
and the urgent whinney which called one to the other and told of
loneliness when separated is no longer heard. It is pathetic to think
that these good creatures have been robbed of the one thing which gave
color to their lives and lifted them above the dreary treadmill of duty
for duty's sake. The kindly friendship of each for his yoke-fellow is
not the old sympathetic companionship, which will come again only when
the cooling breezes, running brooks, and knee-deep pastures of the good
horse's heaven are reached.
A horse is wonderfully sensitive for an animal of his size and strength.
He is timid by nature and his courage comes only from his confidence in
man. His speed, strength, and endurance he will willingly give, and give
it to the utmost, if the hand that guides is strong and gentle, and the
voice that controls is firm, confident, and friendly. Lack of courage in
the master takes from the horse his only chance of being brave; lack of
steadiness makes him indirect and futile; lack of kindness frightens him
into actions which are the result of terror at first, and which become
vices only by mismanagement. By nature the horse is good. If he learns
bad manners by associating with bad men, we ought to lay the blame where
it belongs. A kind master will make a kind horse; and I have no respect
for a man who has had the privilege of training a horse from colt-hood
and has failed to turn out a good one. Lack of good sense, or cruelty,
is at the root of these failures. One can forgive lack of sense, for men
are as God made them; but there is no forgiveness for the cruel: cooling
shades and running brooks will not be prominent features in their
ultimate landscapes.
For harness and farm equipments, tools and machinery, I went to a
reliable firm which made most and handled the rest of the things that
make a well-equipped farm. It is best to do much of one's business
through one house, provided, of course, that the house is dependable.
You become a valued customer whom it is important to please, you receive
discounts, rebates, and concessions that are worth something, and a
community of interest grows up that is worth much.
My first order to this house was for three heavy wagons with four-inch
tires, three sets of heavy harness, two ploughs and a subsoiler, three
harrows (disk, spring tooth, and flat), a steel land-roller, two
wheelbarrows, an iron scraper, fly nets and other stable equipment,
shovels, spades, hay forks, posthole tools, a hand seeder, a chest of
tools, stock-pails, milk-pails and pans, axes, hatchets, saws of various
kinds, a maul and wedges, six kegs of nails, and three lanterns. The
total amount was $488; but as I received five per cent discount, I paid
only $464. The goods, except the wagons and harnesses, were to go by
freight to Exeter. Polly was to buy the necessary furnishings for the
men's house, the only stipulation I made being that the beds should be
good enough for me to sleep in. On the 25th of July she showed me a list
of the things which she had purchased. It seemed interminable; but she
assured me that she had bought nothing unnecessary, and that she had
been very careful in all her purchases. As I knew that Polly was in the
habit of getting the worth of her money, I paid the bills without more
ado. The list footed up to $495.
Most of the housekeeping things were to be delivered at the station in
Exeter; the rest were to go on the wagons. On the afternoon of the 30th
the wagons and harnesses were sent to the stable where the horses had
been kept, and the articles to go in these wagons were loaded for an
early start the following morning. The distance from the station in the
city to the station at Exeter is thirty miles, but the stable is three
miles from the city station, the farm two and a half miles from Exeter
station, and the wagon road not so direct as the railroad. The trip to
the farm, therefore, could not be much less than forty miles, and would
require the best part of two days. The three men whom I had engaged
reported for duty, as also did Thompson's son, whom we are to know
hereafter as Zeb.
Early on the last day of the month the men and teams were off, with
cooked provisions for three days. They were to break the journey
twenty-five miles out, and expected to reach the farm the next
afternoon. Polly and I wished to see them arrive, so we took the train
at 1 P.M. August 1st, and reached Four Oaks at 2.30, taking with us Mrs.
Thompson, who was to cook for the men.
Before starting I had telephoned a local carpenter to meet me, and to
bring a mason if possible. I found both men on the ground, and explained
to them that there would be abundant work in their lines on the place
for the next year or two, that I was perfectly willing to pay a
reasonable profit on each job, but that I did not propose to make them
rich out of any single contract.
The first thing to do, I told them, was to move the large farm-house to
the site already chosen, about two hundred yards distant, enlarge it,
and put a first-class cellar under the whole. The principal change
needed in the house was an additional story on the ell, which would give
a chamber eighteen by twenty-six, with closets five feet deep, to be
used as a sleeping room for the men. I intended to change the sitting
room, which ran across the main house, into a dining and reading room
twenty feet by twenty-five, and to improve the shape and convenience of
the kitchen by pantry and lavatory. There must also be a well-appointed
bathroom on the upper floor, and set tubs in the kitchen. My men would
dig the cellar, and the mason was to put in the foundation walls (twelve
inches thick and two feet above ground), the cross or division walls,
and the chimneys. He was also to put down a first-class cement floor
over the whole cellar and approach. The house was to be heated by a
hot-water system; and I afterward let this job to a city man, who put in
a satisfactory plant for $500.
We had hardly finished with the carpenter and the mason when we saw our
wagons turning into the grounds. We left the contractors to their
measurements, plans, and figures, while we hastened to turn the teams
back, as they must go to the cottage on the north forty. The horses
looked a little done up by the heat and the unaccustomed journey, but
Thompson said: "They're all right,--stood it first-rate."
The cottage and out-buildings furnished scanty accommodations for men
and beasts, but they were all that we could provide. I told the men to
make themselves and the horses as comfortable as they could, then to
milk the cows and feed the hogs, and call it a day.
While the others were unloading and getting things into shape, I called
Thompson off for a talk. "Thompson," I said, "you are to have the
oversight of the work here for the present, and I want you to have some
idea of my general plan. This experiment at farming is to last years. We
won't look for results until we are ready to force them, but we are to
get ready as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will have to do
things in an awkward fashion, and not always for immediate effect. We
must build the factory before we can turn out the finished product. The
cows, for instance, must be cared for until we can dispose of them to
advantage. Half of them, I fancy, are 'robber cows,' not worth their
keep (if it costs anything to feed them), and we will certainly not
winter them. Keep your eye on the herd, and be able to tell me if any of
them will pay. Milk them carefully, and use what milk, cream, and butter
you can, but don't waste useful time carting milk to market--feed it to
the hogs rather. If a farmer or a milkman will call for it, sell what
you have to spare for what he will give, and have done with it quickly.
You are to manage the hogs on the same principle. Fatten those which are
ready for it, with anything you find on the place. We will get rid of
the whole bunch as soon as possible. You see, I must first clear the
ground before I can build my factory. Let the hens alone for the
present; you can eat them during the winter.
"Now, about the crops. The hay in barns and stacks is all right; the
wheat is ready for threshing, but it can wait until the oats are also
ready; the corn is weedy, but it is too late to help it, and the
potatoes are probably covered with bugs. I will send out to-morrow some
Paris green and a couple of blow-guns. There is not much real farm work
to do just now, and you will have time for other things. The first and
most important thing is to dig a cellar to put your house over; your
comfort depends on that. Get the men and horses with plough and scraper
out as early as you can to-morrow morning, and hustle. You have nothing
to do but dig a big hole seven feet deep inside these lines. I count on
you to keep things moving, and I will be out the day after to-morrow."
The mason had finished his estimate, which was $560. After some
explanations, I concluded that it was a fair price, and agreed to it,
provided the work could be done promptly. The carpenter was not ready to
give me figures; he said, however, that he could get a man to move the
house for $120, and that he would send me by mail that night an itemized
estimate of costs, and also one from a plumber. This seemed like doing a
lot of things in one afternoon, so Polly and I started for town content.
"Those people can't be very luxurious out there," said Polly, "but they
can have good food and clean beds. They have all out-doors to breathe
in, and I do not see what more one can ask on a fine August evening, do
you, Mr. Headman?"
I could think of a few things, but I did not mention them, for her first
words recalled some scenes of my early life on a backwoods farm: the log
cabin, with hardly ten nails in it, the latch-string, the wide-mouthed
stone-and-stick chimney, the spring-house with its deep crocks, the
smoke-house made of a hollow gum-tree log, the ladder to the loft where
I slept, and where the snows would drift on the floor through the rifts
in the split clapboards that roofed me over. I wondered if to-day was so
much better than yesterday as conditions would warrant us in expecting.