Hagerman's Knob, Eagle Hill and Justin's Bluff.
If there's plenty of snow, he'll be in the lowlands. (Though
I've yet to find him in Dockerty's Swamp during deer season, Bud
and me will look for him there.)
Old Yellowfoot's one of the very few deer I've ever run across
who's smart enough to work against the wind instead of running
before it. I'm sure he does this the better to locate hunters.
Hunt thickets close to farms. I've a hunch he's hung out in them
more than once while we looked for him in the deep woods.
He will never cross an open space if he can help it, and he
always can.
Then glancing once more at the list, Bud returned to his own figuring.
He frowned and nibbled the eraser of his pencil as he looked at the
sheets of paper scattered on the table in front of him, and finally
arranged them in a neat sheaf and started over them again.
He knew pretty well what Gram and Gramps had paid for his pen of White
Wyandottes, and the price was high. They were the best chickens that
could be bought and, in terms of what they would bring in the market,
the cockerel was worth any two dozen run-of-the-mill chickens and each
of the pullets was worth any dozen. But expensive as the White
Wyandottes had been, so far they had been anything but a bonanza.
Fed according to a formula worked out by Bud and the agriculture teacher
at the Haleyville Consolidated School, the pullets had averaged more
eggs for each bird than the pullets in Gramps' flock, and the cost of
feeding them had been less. But Bud's pleasure at this proof that
scientifically fed chickens did more for less money was somewhat
diminished by the fact that until the past few weeks his chickens had
produced only undersized pullets' eggs. When he accepted such eggs at
all, Pat Haley would never pay more than twenty-seven cents a dozen.
Gram used the surplus eggs in cooking, and Bud had taken his pay in
feed rather than cash. He still owed Gramps sixty-nine cents for feed,
and even though Gramps had told him not to worry, Bud couldn't help it,
for after wintering his flock he was sixty-nine cents in debt, and now
there were fresh problems.
Since it was unthinkable to let his aristocrats mingle with the farm
flock, a run was necessary. Bud could cut the supporting posts in
Bennett's Woods, but wire netting cost money. Besides, there would be no
more income from egg sales for some time, for now that the six pullets
had begun to lay normal-sized eggs, every one of the eggs had to be
hoarded against the time when one or more of the six turned broody. To
prove that there was more profit in better chickens, Bud had to increase
his flock. The arguments for incubators as opposed to the time-honored
setting hen were reasonable but it was out of the question for Bud to
buy even a small incubator. And so, although he could expect no income
from egg sales, at least for a while, he was still faced with the
problem of building a run and of feeding his flock.
It was true that the future looked bright. Something like half the
chicks hatched would probably be cockerels and the other half pullets.
The rooster Bud already had would serve very well for several years
more and the little house could comfortably accommodate him and about
twenty hens. If the overflow were sold . . .
"What's the matter, Bud?" Gramps interrupted. "You look as though you
just dug yourself a fourteen-foot hole, crawled in, and pulled the hole
in on top of you."
Bud shook himself out of the reverie into which he had lapsed and looked
up to see Gramps standing across the table. Bud grinned. There was
something like the old sparkle in Gramps' eye and his chin had its old
defiant tilt.
"I owe you sixty-nine cents for chicken feed, Gramps," Bud said, looking
back at his figures.
"Serious matter," Gramps said gravely. "But I promise not to have the
sheriff attach your flock if you pay in the next day or so. If you're
dead set on having that worry off your mind, why don't you sell some
eggs?"
"I'm saving them for hatching."
"Can't save your eggs and pay your debts, too," Gramps pointed out. "How
many you got laid by?"
"Forty-four."
"Pat Haley'll buy 'em, and now that your hens have started laying
something bigger'n robin's eggs, he'll pay better. You can pay me off
and still have forty, fifty cents for yourself."
Bud looked at the old man. Sometimes he knew how to take Gramps, but
this time he wasn't sure. "I have to save them," he said.
"You don't have to do anything of the kind," Gramps said. "If you're
saving eggs it's 'cause you want to, and if you want to, it's 'cause you
got something in mind. You aim to hatch those eggs?"
"Yes. I think the little house will hold maybe twenty hens and a
rooster."
"'Bout right," Gramps conceded. "So you have seven in there now and
forty-four eggs saved. If you get an eighty per cent hatch, and that
won't be bad for a rooster as don't yet know too much 'bout his
business, you'll have thirty-five more chickens. So that makes forty-two
in a twenty-one hen house. It don't add up."
Bud said quickly, "That isn't what I have in mind. I'll keep fourteen of
the best pullets and sell all the rest."
"Something in that," Gramps admitted. "Pat Haley'll pay you the going
price for both fryers and broilers. Take out the cost of feed, and if
you're lucky, come fall you could have ten or fifteen dollars for
yourself."
Bud said thoughtfully, "I hadn't meant to sell any for fryers. I'd hoped
to sell the surplus as breeding stock."
"Hope is the most stretchable word in the dictionary," Gramps said. "If
we didn't have it we'd be better off dead but there's such a thing as
having too much. Many a man who's tried to live on hope alone has ended
up with both hands full of nothing. Do you think anybody who knows
anything about poultry will pay you breeding-stock prices for chickens
from an untried pen?"
"But my chickens have the best blood lines there are," Bud said.
"And it don't mean a blasted thing unless they have a lot of what it
takes," Gramps said. "Joe Barston paid seven hundred and fifty dollars
for a four-month-old bull calf whose ancestors had so much blue blood
they all but wore monocles. But this calf threw the measliest lot of
runts you ever saw and finally Joe sold him for beef. Now if you had a
proven pen of chickens, if you could show in black and white that yours
produced the most meat and laid the most eggs for the breed, you could
sell breeding stock. Otherwise you're out of luck." Gramps shrugged.
Bud stared dully at his papers. Dreaming of getting ten dollars or more
for a cockerel that was worth a dollar and thirty-five cents as a
broiler had been just another ride on a pink cloud, and his dreams of
wealth in the fall evaporated.
"Your chin came close to fracturing your big toe," Gramps said. "Don't
be licked before you are. Now you don't want to keep your own pullets
'cause you'll be breeding daughters back to their own father, and that's
not for you. At least, it's not until you know more about such things.
But you can trade some of yours back to the same farm where your pen
came from. He'll probably ask more than bird for bird, but he'll trade
and the least you can figure on is starting out this fall with a bigger
flock. The rest you'd better figure on selling to Joe Haley. Now how
many eggs have you been getting a day?"
"The least I've had since spring weather set in is two. The most is
five."
"That's all? You never got six?"
"Not yet."
"Have you tried trap-nesting your hens?"
"No."
"Why not?"
Bud knew that trapping each hen in her nest after she laid and keeping a
record of her production was the only way to weed out the drones from
the workers. He hadn't tried it, though, because he hadn't wanted to
leave any hen trapped away from food and water while he was at school
all day. He hadn't wanted to ask Gramps to look after his trap nests for
him either, but he only said lamely, "I never thought of it."
"You should have," Gramps said. "If you're going to make out with these
hifalutin' chickens of yours you have to think of everything. Looks to
me like you got a slacker in your flock and, though maybe she wouldn't
be better off in the stew pot, you'd be better off to put her there."
"That's so," Bud conceded, "but how do I know which one?"
"You don't and there's no sense fussing about it now. So what else is
bothering you?"
"I haven't got any money," Bud confessed.
"That," Gramps' serious eyes seemed suddenly to twinkle, "puts you in
the same boat with forty-nine million and two other people. Why do you
need money?"
"I need to build an enclosed run. I can't let my chickens run with the
farm flock."
"True," Gramps said. "High society chickens oughtn't mix with ordinary
fowl. Why don't you go ahead and build your run?"
"I told you. I haven't any money for netting and staples."
"Go in that little room beside the granary and you'll find a role of
netting. Kite yourself down to Pat Haley's during lunch hour tomorrow,
get some staples, and tell Pat to charge 'em to me."
"But . . ."
"Will you let me finish?" Gramps said sharply. "I didn't say you were
going to get any part of it for free. That roll of netting cost me four
dollars and sixty cents. Add to it whatever the staples cost, and since
you want to save your eggs for hatching, somebody's got to buy feed for
your chickens. I'll take you on until you have fryers to sell, but
strictly as a business deal. Just a minute."
Gramps wrote on a sheet of paper, shoved it across the table, and Bud
read,
_On demand I promise to pay to Delbert J. Bennett the sum of
----. My pen of White Wyandottes plus any increase therefrom
shall be security for the payment of this note._
Bud looked inquiringly across the table. Gramps shrugged. "All you have
to do is sign it and go ahead; you're in the chicken business if you
want in."
"How much will I owe you?"
"I'll fill in the amount when the time comes," Gramps promised. "Do you
want to sign or don't you?
"I'll sign," Bud said, and painfully he wrote _Allan Wilson Sloan_ in
the proper place and gave the note back to Gramps.
The old man was folding it in his wallet when Gram said, "What nonsense
is this?" She had come into the kitchen unnoticed and plainly she had
been observing Gramps and Bud for some time. Her face was stormier than
Bud had ever seen it and her normally gentle eyes snapped. Nonchalantly
Gramps tucked the wallet into his pocket.
"Just a little business deal, Mother. I'm going to finance Bud's chicken
business and he's going to pay me back when he sells his broilers and
fryers."
"The idea," Gram said. "The very idea. Give that note back at once,
Delbert Bennett."
"Now don't get all het up, Mother. A deal's a deal."
Bud saw that Gram's fury was beginning to touch Gramps in a tender spot,
and he fidgeted nervously and said,
"I'd rather have it this way, Gram."
Gram answered by glaring at Gramps and flouncing out of the room. Bud
looked dismally after her and turned to Gramps with a feeble smile.
"She shouldn't be so upset. I don't want anyone except me to pay for my
chickens."
"She'll be a long while mad 'less she gets over it," Gramps said, still
smarting. "Anything else, Bud?"
"Yes. How many eggs can you put under a setting hen?"
"Depends on the size of the hen. A small one'll take eleven, a
medium-size can handle thirteen and you can put fifteen 'neath a big
hen."
"When do you think my hens will turn broody?"
"Hard telling," Gramps growled. "A hen's a female critter and when it
comes to doing anything sensible they ain't no different from other
female critters. Hell and high water can't make 'em do anything 'thout
they put their mind to it, and nine cases of dynamite can't stop 'em
once they do."
Two days later, when he had carried five more eggs to his hoard that now
numbered forty-seven, Bud found only two eggs left. He was sure that
Gram or Gramps had mistakenly sent the eggs he had been saving to
Haleyville along with the regular farm shipment. He went sadly out to
the barn where Gramps was going over his gardening tools.
"You look like you'd swallowed a quart of vinegar," the old man said as
he glanced up.
"It isn't that," Bud said forlornly. "Somebody sent most of my hatching
eggs to market."
"No they didn't," Gramps said. "Three of my hens went broody and I took
'em. Put fifteen eggs under each, seeing they were big hens."
"But they're your hens."
"Don't trouble your head," Gramps said. "Setting hen rent'll be on the
bill when time comes to settle up."
* * * * *
The following autumn, when Bud had been at Gram and Gramps' for more
than a year, he strode down a tote road into Bennett's Woods with Shep
tagging at his heels. Bright red and yellow leaves waved on every
hardwood and swished underfoot as he plowed through them. The evergreens
were ready for the frigid blasts to come, and the laurel and
rhododendrons, touched but never daunted by frost, rattled in the sharp
north wind.
A gray squirrel, frantically harvesting nuts and seeds before deep snow
came, scooted up a tree, flattened himself on a limb and chirred when
Bud went past. Three grouse rose on rattling wings. A sleek doe snorted
and, curling her white tail over her back, bounded away.
Bud was oblivious, for he had come into Bennett's Woods to try to solve
the problems that were bedeviling him.
That summer he had succeeded in hatching seventy-nine chicks.
Seventy-four had survived, a far better percentage than was average,
because Bud had watched his flock constantly for disease, predators and
accidents.
The poultryman from whom Gram and Gramps had bought the original stock
had traded fourteen young pullets for fourteen of Bud's pullets and
three of Bud's cockerels, with Bud paying express charges both ways. The
rest Bud had sold to Pat Haley. After paying Gramps every penny he owed
him and interest as well, Bud had $8.97 to show for his summer's toil,
and his problems were not yet ended. For even after they started to lay,
it would be a long while before his pullets would produce full-sized
eggs.
Shep curled up beside him on the bank of Skunk Creek as Bud sat there
and stared moodily at the stream wondering how he would see his
increased flock through the winter with only $8.97 and perhaps some egg
money.
All he wanted from life was to stay on the farm with Gram and Gramps. He
knew he would never even be well off if he reckoned success in financial
terms alone, but the whirr of a winging grouse, the snort of a deer and
the leap of a trout meant more to him than money, and he knew they
always would. Still dreams have to have a practical side, too. Even if
money is the root of all evil, it is indispensable, and Bud thought
again of the $8.97 that he had earned that summer.
Suddenly he froze in his place. Back in the trees across the creek he
saw a flicker. Then the black buck appeared. Bud sat spellbound,
recalling the day when, heartsick and lonely, he had ventured into the
woods and found a brother in the black buck. The buck now came
cautiously down to the creek and Bud's eyes widened with delight.
Although this was his first year, the black buck was as big as some of
the two- and three-year-old bucks that Bud and Gramps had seen in the
woods. And instead of the spikes or fork horn that young bucks usually
have, the black buck had a very creditable pair of antlers with three
symmetrical tines on each. The buck drank and then, raising his dripping
muzzle, caught Bud's scent and raced back into the woods.
Bud rose and started homeward, his depression gone. The black buck had
faced his problems, too, and many of them had surely been desperate. But
he had triumphed magnificently. This made Bud feel better and to see
that his own situation was far brighter than he had thought. For
although he had very little cash, he had more than tripled his flock.
Moreover, he had the run and he owed nothing. Best of all he had the
future.
chapter 9
One winter afternoon during his third year with Gram and Gramps, Bud was
waiting in the study hall for Mr. Demarest, who taught agriculture at
the Haleyville High School. Bud glanced at the clock on the wall. What
seemed an hour ago it had been five minutes past four. Now it was only
six minutes after. He sighed and stared out at the snow that was
trampled in the yards and left in dirty piles in the street.
Winter always seemed a barren, meaningless season in Haleyville. At
Bennett's Farm, however, where the snow covered the fields with an
inviting blanket and transformed the woods into another world, winter
was a natural and fitting part of things. There the seasons were fully
seen and felt, not mere dates on a calendar as they were in town. Spring
was the time for new life to be born, summer for spring-born life to
attain maturity, autumn for the harvest to be gathered and winter for
the land to rest and recuperate for spring.
As he stared out the study-hall window, Bud thought of Bennett's Woods,
where Old Yellowfoot still bore his proud rack of antlers as he skulked
through the thickets and tested the wind for signs of an enemy. He had
been unmolested for the past two seasons, for Gramps had not been well
enough to hunt deer and nobody else had a chance of hunting him
successfully.
In Bennett's Woods, too, the black buck, now a king in his own right,
snorted his challenge from the ridges and put to flight lesser bucks
that sought the favor of the does he coveted. Three years had not dimmed
Bud's memory of his first meeting with the tiny black fawn or lessened
his feeling of bondship with him. Whenever Bud was troubled or faced
with problems for which there seemed to be no solution, he still went
into Bennett's Woods to seek out the black buck. And always he found
there the answer he needed, for seeing the black buck achieve his
destiny gave Bud the confidence he needed to work out his own life.
Some of the things that had happened before he came to Bennett's Farm
now seemed as remote as if they had taken place during some other life.
Bud could hardly believe that he had been the frightened, defiant
twelve-year-old boy who had trudged up the Bennetts' driveway three
years ago expecting nothing and having received everything. It seemed
incredible that three years had elapsed since then and that he had gone
on from grammar school into high school. And although his marks were not
the highest in his class, they were still a source of pride to Gram and
Gramps.
Some of the things that had seemed horribly unreal, Bud now saw in their
true perspective. He remembered vividly his first Christmas at the farm,
but now he knew and liked the Bennetts' children and grandchildren. And
now he appreciated the true measure of his own love for Gram and Gramps.
He had been a starved waif, and they had fed his soul as well as his
body. More than ever he wanted to be with them always, to live as they
had lived and to shape his life by the ideals to which they had clung.
But to be as good a farmer as Gramps had been, Bud needed technical
knowledge. That was why he was waiting for Mr. Demarest.
Bud thought wistfully of Gramps, who for the past two seasons had been
forced to confine his outdoor activities to a little fishing and grouse
hunting. But now he was fit again, and when the deer season opened
tomorrow, he and Bud would be on the trail of Old Yellowfoot once more.
This time they were certain to bag him; Gramps felt it in his bones.
Then the door opened and Mr. Demarest came in. He was a small man, but
quick and wiry. He was in his late thirties, but the ordeals of a
poverty-stricken boyhood and youth had made him look ten years older
than he was. His black hair had gray streaks and he could never manage
more than a fleeting smile. The son of a ne'er-do-well tenant farmer,
Mr. Demarest had had no formal schooling until he was fifteen. But then
he had set doggedly out to educate himself. Once he had done so, he had
dedicated himself to teaching future farmers how to succeed, for he
could not forget his father's many failures.
"I'm sorry to be late, Allan," he said pleasantly as he came through the
study-hall door. "What's on your mind, son?"
"Mr. Demarest," Bud stammered, "I want to be a farmer."
"Is something stopping you?" Mr. Demarest's eyes twinkled.
"No," Bud said. "I'm certain I can throw in with Gramps Bennett and take
over from him. I can buy out Gram and Gramps' children. They aren't
interested in farming."
"Think it over carefully," Mr. Demarest said seriously. "There are
better farms you might have."
"I don't want any other farm," Bud said firmly. "I want that one."
"It's sort of special, eh?"
"It's very special."
"Then what is your problem?"
"I don't know enough," Bud said. "Three years ago, for Christmas, I was
given a pen of White Wyandottes. They're the Eichorn strain, about as
good as you can get. I built from them and I was able to show Gramps
that my purebreds were more profitable than his mongrel flock. We
replaced his flock with Eichorn Wyandottes, too, and we're doing all
right with them. But I can see where I made a lot of mistakes that
needn't have been made if I had known how to avoid them. I want to go
to college and study agriculture."
"Do you have any money?"
"No," Bud said. "I'm going to need most of what I have saved for berry
plants next spring."
"But why, if you've built up a flock of Eichorn Wyandottes from one
single pen, do you have only enough money to buy some berry plants?"
"The chickens have earned money, but I have needed it for day-to-day
living," Bud said.
"Can Mr. and Mrs. Bennett help you at all?"
"They have a little more than four thousand dollars in the bank here at
Haleyville, but that's all they have. They'll need it if anything goes
wrong with either of them and I wondered if I could work my way through
agriculture college?"
"You could, but I wouldn't consider earning all your expenses. At least,
not at the beginning. Haven't you been able to sell any breeding stock
from your Wyandottes?"
"No," Bud said. "That's one reason I want to go to college."
"What's your scholastic average?"
"B plus."
"Good, but not good enough for a scholarship even if there were enough
of them for all able youngsters and if Haleyville Consolidated School
received its just share. Allan, I don't want to be a killjoy, but you
asked for my advice. Don't even think of college until you're able to
finance at least your first semester. Then, if you show enough promise,
the college will help you find ways to continue."
"How much will I need?" Bud asked.
"If you're careful, you should be able to get by with about seven
hundred dollars. Perhaps even less."
"Seven hundred dollars!" Bud gasped.
"It isn't a million."
"It might as well be!"
"You can earn that much on summer jobs."
"Gramps has been sick. He can't spare me in summer."
"What will he do when you go to college?"
"It looks as though I'll be spared that worry," Bud said miserably. "If
I need seven hundred dollars, I'm not going."
"You asked for my advice and I gave it, Allan, and I'd have rendered you
no service if I hadn't been realistic," Mr. Demarest said gently. "If I
had a magic wand to wave you into college with, believe me, I'd wave it.
But I have no such thing. All you can do is to keep trying and never
abandon hope."
Bud could say nothing, and finally Mr. Demarest said, "The bus has left.
How will you get home?"
"I'll walk."
"I'll take you," Mr. Demarest said.
Bud rode in heartbroken silence up the snow-bordered highway. Mr.
Demarest, who knew so much about so many things that Bud had almost
believed he knew all about everything, hadn't been able to tell him how
to get a college education. And so it was hopeless. Mr. Demarest drew up
at the foot of the Bennetts' drive and put out his hand.
Mr. Demarest drove off and Bud tried to put a spring in his step and a
tilt to his chin as he walked up the drive. The whole world, after all,
had not fallen apart--just half of it. And Gramps was not only better
but excited as a six-year-old over the prospect of hunting Old
Yellowfoot tomorrow. Bud took off his overshoes, patted Shep and went
into the kitchen.
Gram had just taken a tray of ginger cookies from the oven and put them
on the table. Their odor permeated the whole kitchen. Gramps sat against
the far wall happily oiling his rifle. Since Dr. Beardsley had given
Gramps permission to go deer hunting this season, Gramps had been
inspecting his rifle ten times a day. By now he had sighted it in so
finely that he could almost drive nails with it at a hundred yards.