Uncle Ike was sitting in his room with a bath robe on, and his great,
big, bare feet in a tub of hot water, in which some dry mustard had been
sifted, and on a table beside him was a pitcher of hot lemonade, which
he was trying to drink, as it got cool enough to go down his neck
without scorching his throat. His head was hot, and he had evidently
taken a severe cold, and occasionally he would groan, when he moved his
body, and place his hand to the small of his back. His pipe and tobacco
were far away on the mantel, though he could smell them, and the odor so
satisfying to him when he was well, almost made him sick, and when the
red-headed boy came in the room the first thing the old man said was:
“Take that dum pipe and terbacker out of the room, and put it in the
woodshed. Your Uncle Ike ain't enjoyin' his terbacker very well,”
and the old fellow made up a face, and looked as though he was on a
steamboat excursion in rough weather. The boy took the pipe by the tail,
and the tobacco paper in his other hand, and went out, and soon returned
with a heavy blanket coat on, a pair of felt boots, and a toboggan
knit-cap, and a pair of yarn mittens on, though it was late in July, and
the weather was quite hot. Uncle Ike looked at him in wonder, as though
he was not sure but it was winter, and he was so ill as not to know that
summer and fall had passed without his knowing it.
“What you got them sliding-down-hill clothes on for, in July?” said the
old man, as he put one puckered-up bare foot on the other, in the water,
and sozzled them around in the mustard in the bottom of the tub. “You
will have me sunstruck yet, if you wear those clothes around here. What
is up, anyway?”
[Illustration: A lot of us boys are going to the Klondike 093]
“A lot of us boys are going to the Klondike,” said the red-headed boy,
as he took a big hunting knife out of a sheath, “and I came in to see
if you would grubstake me. We have been reading about the millions of
dollars in gold nuggets and dust, that is being brought out, and we are
going to have some of the gold. Want your corns cut?” said the boy, as
he sharpened the knife on Uncle Ike's boot that lay on the floor.
“You ducks have been reading about the gold that has been brought out,
but you forgot to read about the corpses that stayed in the Klondike,
didn't you?” said the old man as he took a drink of the hot lemonade,
and pulled the bathrobe around his hind legs. “You tell the boys you are
not going, and that Uncle Ike will not grubstake you. Tell them you have
found out that for every dollar in gold that comes out of the mines,
a hundred dollars is spent to find it. Tell them that not one man in a
hundred that goes there ever sees anything yellow, except the janders.
Tell them that seven out of ten men either freeze to death, or die of
disease, or starve to death, and that every trail in Alaska is marked
with graves of just such fools as you boys. Tell them that they can make
more money selling picture books at a blind asylum, or tin trumpets at
a deaf and dumb school, than they could by digging gold in the Klondike,
and that you are going to stay home. Now take off that uniform and get
down on your knees and rub my feet dry,” and the old man drew one foot
out of the tub and rested it on the edge, while the boy took a Turkish
towel that looked like a piece of tripe, and began polishing the foot,
like a bootblack.
“Gosh, but one of your feet would make about six the size of my girl's
feet,” said the boy, as he fixed the old man up, and helped him onto a
lounge, where he stretched out and went to sleep. For an hour the boy
watched the old man, and listened to his snore, and finally he got a
gutta-percha bug out of his fishing tackle, and when Uncle Ike woke up
and began to stretch the boy said: “Uncle Ike, I have saved your life.
This kissing bug was just ready to pounce, on you, and poison you, when
I grabbed it and killed it. See!” and he held up the bug.
“Yes, I see,” said Uncle Ike, as he rubbed his eyes, and looked at the
kissing bug. “You examine it close, right by the tail, and you will find
a trout hook. I used to catch a great many trout with that bug,” and
Uncle Ike got up and stretched his limbs, and found that his cold was
gone, and he was well enough, and he dressed himself and began to act
natural, and after the boy had looked him over, and marveled at the
sudden cure, he said:
“Uncle Ike, you have deceived me. I thought you was on your last legs,
and I was going to have a serious talk with you. Heretofore, when I have
tried to talk serious with you, you have turned everything into fun, but
now I want a serious opinion from you. What would you think of my going
out on a farm and learning to be a farmer? I ride by farms and see
farmers and boys at work, or lying in the shade, or drinking out of a
jug, or sitting on loads of hay, or riding a horse plowing corn, and it
seems to me they have an easy life, and they must make money; and if I
can't enlist to fight Filipinos, nor go to the Klondike, I want to be
a farmer. What do you think, Uncle Ike?” and the boy looked up into the
old man's face appealingly.
“Well, bring back that pipe and terbacker, and I will tell you all
about farming, for I was brung up on a farm till I was busted.” The boy
brought in the smoke consumer, and after the old man had puffed a few
times, and found it did not make him sick, he continued: “In the first
place, you are getting too old to learn farming. When city people have
a call to farm it, they buy a farm, put up a windmill, get plumbers
out from town, put in a bathtub with hot and cold water, and buy some
carriages with high backs, and go in for enjoyment, regardless of the
price of country produce. They put in hammocks and lawn tennis, and
the young people wear knickerbockers and white canvas dresses, and roll
their pants up, and all that. There is no money in farming that way.
Now, you have got your city habits formed; you don't get up in the
morning till after 7, and you have to take a bath, and have fresh
underclothes frequently. You would want to lay in the shade too much and
ride on the hay. Did it ever occur to you that before you could ride on
the hay it has to be cut, and cured, and cocked up, and raked around?
It takes a whole lot of backaches to get a load of hay ready for you to
ride on. Now, you are going on 20 years old. If you had been born on a
farm, you would be just about ready to quit it and come to town to learn
something else. You would have a stomach full of farming, for you would
have worked about twelve years, day and night; your hands would be
muscular, and you would have callouses inside of them. You go out on a
farm now, at your age, and when you get the first blister on your hands
you want to send for a doctor, and you throw up the job and come back on
my hands. Suppose you started out next Monday morning to learn to be a
farmer. Let me make out a programme for you. You would go to bed Sunday
night at 9 o'clock, and lay awake thinking of the glory of a farmer's
life, and at 3 a. m. you would go to sleep, and at 4 you would hear the
door to the attic open, and a voice that would sound like an auctioneer
would yell to you to come down and get to work. You couldn't argue the
case with the farmer, as you do with me when I try to get you up early
to go fishing; and you would get up and put on a pair of cowhide shoes,
brown overalls, a hickory shirt with bed-ticking suspenders, and you
would go out into a barnyard that smelled like fury, and milk nine or
fifteen cows on an empty stomach; and while another hired man was taking
the milk to a creamery, you would see that it was not daylight yet, but
you would go in the kitchen and eat a slice of pork, and hurry about it,
and then you would curry off the horses, and help hitch the team to a
reaper; and just as it was getting light enough to see things, you would
go out to a wheat field, and, after the old man had cut two or three
swaths around the field, several of you would turn in to bind up the
bundles. They would show you how, and then they would see that you did
your share of work.
“You would hustle for about four hours, and you would be so hungry it
wouldn't be safe for a dog to come around you, and you would drink warm
water out of a jug till your stomach ached, and you would wonder if it
was not almost supper time, and if you looked at your watch you would
find it was only about 9 o'clock in the morning, with three more solid
hours of work before dinner time. When the horn blew for dinner you
would just be able to climb on one of the horses to ride to the house,
and the harness would take the skin off your elbows. When you got to
the house you would want to lay down and die, but you would have to pull
water up in buckets to water the horses, and go up in the hay mow and
throw down hay and carry oats to them, and when you went in to dinner
you would feel as though you could eat a ten course banquet, but you
would find that it was washing day, and they didn't do any cooking, and
you would eat a bowl of bread and milk, and chew about a bushel of young
onions, and when you were filled up and wanted to lie down and go to
sleep, and die, the old man would tell you to hustle out and hitch up
that team, and you would be so lame you couldn't ride on top of a hard
farm harness, and you would walk to the field, your heavy shoes wearing
the skin off your ankles, and the old machine would begin to stutter and
rattle, and you would go to work binding bundles at 1 o'clock and work
till dark, because it looked as though it was going to rain, and when
you got the chores done, milked the cows, bedded down the horses,
carried in wood to the kitchen and a few things like that, and they told
you supper was ready, you would say you would rather go to bed than eat,
and you would go up in the attic and fall on the bed, and go to sleep
and dream of your Uncle Ike. Do you know where I would find you next?
You would come into town on an early freight train Tuesday morning, and
show up about breakfast time, and you would hunt the bathtub, and if
any man ever talked farming to you again, you would be sassy to him. No,
boy, the city man or boy is not intended for a farmer, but the farmer
boy is intended for the city, when he gets enough of the farm. About so
much farming has got to be done, but it will be done by those who are
brought up to it, and who know that every minute has got to be used
to produce something, that the appetite must be satisfied easily and
cheaply, and that everything on the farm must be of marketable value,
and nothing must be bought that can be dispensed with, and that
everybody must work or give a good reason for not working. The pleasure
of farming is largely in anticipation. The big crops and big prices
are always coming next year. You would be about as good at farming as
I would at preaching,” and Uncle Ike gradually ceased speaking, like an
old clock that is running down, and ticking slower and slower, and then
he fell asleep in his chair, and the red-headed boy sat and thought of
what had been said, and looked at his hands as though he expected to
find a blister, and smelled of them to see if he had actually been
milking cows, and then he rolled over on the lounge and went to sleep,
and the two snored a match.