FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS
EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 14, 1924
Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.
Dear Sir: This will acknowledge your valued favor of October 12, and
we regret exceedingly that you have been unable to locate the part
which you desire in the parts book, and that consequently you have
been subject to annoying delay. As it is always our desire to render
the greatest possible service to Earthworm Tractor owners, we have
gone into this matter with the greatest of care; and after checking
over very thoroughly the descriptions given in your latest letter,
and also in former letters, we have come to the conclusion that the
gear you desire is the 45-tooth intermediate spur gear, symbol No.
6843, as illustrated on page 16 of the parts book. We note that you
state that the gear has 44 teeth, but as there is no such gear in
your model tractor, and as No. 6843 gears fits the description in
other particulars, we can only assume that you made a mistake in
counting the number of teeth in the gear.
Accordingly we are shipping you by express this afternoon one No.
6843 gear, which we trust will prove to be the part desired.
Assuring you of our constant desire to render you every possible
service, efficiently and promptly, I remain,
Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.
DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 18, 1924
To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois
Dear Sir: Your letter come yesterday your gear come to-day C.O.D.
$41.26 and not only that, but it is no good and it wont fit. It is
not like the old gear. It looks like a well made gear but there is
nothing like it on my tractor so it is no good to me it is too big it
wont go on it wont fit on the shaft. And if it did fit on the shaft,
it would not work because it is too big and the teeth would not mesh
with the teeth on the little gear, and it ought to have 44 teeth like
I said, not 45. So will you look this up again more carefully and
send me the right gear and send it as quick as possible? I'm in a
hurry, and I will explain to you how things stand so you can see I am
no liar when I say I got to have this gear right off or I am a blowed
up sucker.
I am new in the house moving business and I am moving a house for Mr.
Rogers of this city, and Mr. Rogers is a very stubborn old cuss and
he insisted that the house be moved all together--which includes the
main part which is two stories high and built very strong and solid,
and also the front porch which sticks out in front and is built
pretty weak, and also the one-story kitchen which sticks out behind.
The kitchen is very frail.
But Mr. Rogers did not listen to me when I wanted to move the kitchen
and front porch separate from the house. So, as I am a young man and
new at the house moving business and anxious to make a good
impression, I tried to do it like he wanted. I jacked up the whole
works all together, and put timbers underneath, and heavy trucks that
I bought from a contractor at Llano, and we came up from the depot
fine--the tractor pulling good and the little old house rolling along
smooth and quiet and beautiful. But at 3 P.M. October 1, just as we
was going past Jim Ferguson's Drug Store on the main street of this
city, there come a funny noise in the tractor, and we have been stuck
ever since waiting for a new gear because the tractor will not run
with six teeth busted out of the old gear.
So you can see that it is no lie that I am in a hurry, and I will
explain that for 2 and ½ weeks, no traffic has been able to go past
Jim Ferguson's Drug Store. All traffic on the main street of this
city has been detoured--turning to the right through the field next
to Johnson's Garage, following the back lane past the shed where
Harvey Jenkins keeps his cow, and then around Wilson's Hardware Store
and back to the main street, and all this owing to the stubbornness
of old man Rogers making me take the porch and the kitchen along at
the same time.
The porch is now resting two feet from the drug store and the kitchen
just three feet from the post office on the other side of the street.
If old man Rogers had listened to me and we had taken the kitchen
off, there would have been room for traffic to get past, but now we
cant take the kitchen off on account of being so jammed up against
the post office, but people dont figger on that and everybody in town
blames it on me that traffic is held up, which is very wrong as I am
doing the best I can.
And now old man Rogers says I contracted to move his house, and I had
better hurry up, and he says why dont I hire some horses but I say
horses would be unsafe, because when they get to pulling something
very heavy they get to jerking and they would be liable to jerk the
house and injure it, owing to the fact that Mr. Rogers was so
stubborn as to make me leave the kitchen and the porch on the house,
thus weakening it. And besides I got no money to waste hiring horses
when I got a tractor already, so you can see why I'm in a hurry being
anxious to make a good impression and get married.
Please send at once the right gear which has FORTY-FOUR TEETH (44),
because the old gear has 38 good teeth, and 6 busted off, making 44
like I said, not 45. And the right gear is an inch narrower than the
one you sent, and the hole through the middle is smaller. I am
making a picture so you can see just what gear it is, so please send
it at once and oblige,