AN HUNDRED FOLD
Kate declared that she had had the time of her life during her nine
weeks' stay at Four Oaks. "People here every day, and the house full
over Sunday. We've kept the place humming," said she, "and you may be
thankful if you find anything here but a mortgage. When Tom and I get
rich, we are going to be farm people."
"Don't wait for that, daughter. Start your country home early and let it
grow up with the children. It doesn't take much money to buy the land
and to get fruit trees started. If Tom will give it his care for three
hours a week, he will make it at least pay interest and taxes, and it
will grow in value every year until you are ready to live on it. Think
how our orchards would look now if we had started them ten years ago!
They would be fit to support an average family."
"There, Dad, don't mount your hobby as soon as ever you get home. But we
_have_ had a good time out here. Do you really think farming is all beer
and skittles?"
"It has been smooth sailing for me thus far, and I believe it is simply
a business with the usual ups and downs; but I mean to make the ups the
feature in this case."
"Are you really glad to get back to it? Didn't you want to stay longer?"
"I had a fine trip, and all that, but I give you this for true; I don't
think it would make me feel badly if I were condemned to stay within
forty miles of this place for the rest of my life."
"I can't go so far as that with you, Dad, but perhaps I may when I'm
older."
"Yes, age makes a difference. At forty a man is a fool or a farmer, or
both; at fifty the pull of the land is mighty; at sixty it has full
possession of him; at seventy it draws him down with other forces than
that which Newton discovered, and at eighty it opens for him and kindly
tucks the sod around him. Mother Earth is no stepmother, but warm and
generous to all, and I think a fellow is lucky who comes to her for long
years of bounty before he is compelled to seek her final hospitality."
"But, Dad, we can't all be farmers."
"Of course not, and there's the pity of it; but almost every man can
have a plot of ground on which each year he can grow some new thing, if
only a radish or a leaf of lettuce, to add to the real wealth of the
world. I tell you, young lady, that all wealth springs out of the
ground. You think that riches are made in Wall Street, but they are
not; they are only handled and manipulated. Stop the work of the farmer
from April to October of any year, and Wall Street would be a howling
wilderness. The Street makes it easier to exchange a dozen eggs for
three spools of silk, or a pound of butter for a hat pin, but that's
all; it never created half the intrinsic value of twelve eggs or sixteen
ounces of butter. It's only the farmer who is a wealth producer, and
it's high time that he should be recognized as such. He's the husbandman
of all life; without him the world would be depopulated in three years.
You don't half appreciate the profession which your Dad has taken up in
his old age."
"That sounds all right, but I don't think the farmer would recognize
himself from that description. He doesn't live up to his possibilities,
does he?"
"Mighty few people do. A farmer may be what he chooses to be. He's under
no greater limitations than a business or a professional man. If he be
content to use his muscle blindly, he will probably fall under his own
harrow. So, too, would the merchant or the lawyer who failed to use his
intelligence in his business. The farmer who cultivates his mind as well
as his land, uses his pencil as often as his plough, and mixes brains
with brawn, will not fall under his own harrow or any other man's. He
will never be the drudge of soil or of season, for to a large extent he
can control the soil and discount the season. No other following gives
such opportunity for independence and self-balance."
"Almost thou persuadest me to become a farmer," said Kate, as we left
the porch, where I had been admiring my land while I lectured on the
advantages of husbandry.
Polly came out of the rose garden, where she had been examining her
flowers and setting her watch, and said:--
"Kate, you and the grand-girls must stay this month out, anyway. It
seems an age since we saw you last."
"All right, if Dad will agree not to fire farm fancies and figures at me
every time he catches me in an easy-chair."
"I'll promise, but you don't know what you're missing."
Four Oaks looked great, and I was tempted to tramp over every acre of
it, saying to each, "You are mine"; but first I had a little talk with
Thompson.
"Everything has been greased for us this summer," said Thompson. "We got
a bumper crop of hay, and the oats and corn are fine! I allow you've got
fifty-five bushels of oats to the acre in those shocks, and the corn
looks like it stood for more than seventy. We sold nine more calves the
end of June, for $104. Mr. Tom must have a lot of money for you, for in
August we sold the finest bunch of shoates you ever saw,--312 of them.
They were not extra heavy, but they were fine as silk. Mr. Tom said they
netted $4.15 per hundred, and they averaged a little over 260 pounds. I
went down with them, and the buyers tumbled over each other to get them.
I was mighty proud of the bunch, and brought back a check for $3407."
"Good for you, Thompson! That's the best sale yet."
"Some of the heifers will be coming in the last of this month or the
first of next. Don't you want to get rid of those five scrub cows?"
"Better wait six weeks, and then you may sell them. Do you know where
you can place them?"
"Jackson was looking at them a few days ago, and said he would give $35
apiece for them; but they are worth more."
"Not for us, Thompson, and not for him, either, if he saw things just
right. They're good for scrubs; but they don't pay well enough for us,
and if he wants them he can have them at that price about the middle of
October."
The credit account for the second quarter of 1898 stood:--
23 calves . . . . . $270.00
Eggs . . . . . . 637.00
Butter . . . . . . 1314.00
Total. . . . . . $2221.00