FARMERS' FRIEND TRACTOR COMPANY
MAKERS OF EARTHWORM TRACTORS
EARTHWORM CITY, ILL.
October 21, 1924
Mr. David Crockett Suggs
Dry River Junction, Tex.
Dear Sir: This will acknowledge receipt of your letter of October 18,
from which we note that you are having trouble in installing in your
tractor gear No. 6843, which we shipped you on October 14.
We regret exceedingly that you have had this trouble, and to the end
that the basis of the difficulty might be discovered, we have
carefully checked over your former correspondence and have at length
come to the conclusion that gear No. 6843, which we sent you, is the
proper gear. We are therefore at a loss to understand why you have
been unable to use it, and can only suggest that you may possibly
have made some error in installing it.
To obviate this difficulty we are to-day mailing you, under separate
cover, a copy of our latest instruction book on the care, operation
and repair of Earthworm Tractors. We regret that this book was
prepared for the new-style tractors, but as the method of installing
transmission gears is essentially the same in both old- and new-style
tractors, we feel sure that you will have no trouble in applying the
instructions to your old-style tractor. Please study carefully the
pictures and full descriptions on page 34, and if you proceed as
directed we feel sure you will experience no further difficulty in
installing the gear.
In case, however, there still remains some minor trouble to interfere
with the perfect operation of the tractor, we shall appreciate it if
you will notify us, as we are always anxious to give owners of
Earthworm Tractors the fullest possible coöperation.
Very truly yours,
FREDERICK R. OVERTON,
Parts Department.
DRY RIVER JUNCTION, TEXAS
October 25, 1924
To The Farmers Friend Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois
Dear Sir: Your letter come yesterday your book come to-day they are
no good to me. It takes more than a book for a new tractor to put
onto an entirely different old tractor a gear wheel that don't belong
to it. I tell you again--you have sent me the wrong gear.
What I want is the big bull gear on the back that has 44 teeth.
FORTY-FOUR. _Not_ 45. And it goes round and round and makes the
tractor go. It is the great big cog wheel that meshes with the
little cog wheel. I bet you have sent me a gear for one of your
new-style tractors--how do I know? You told me you had looked it up
what model tractor I got, so why don't you send me the gear that will
fit?
If you people knew what I was up against, you would get busy, and you
would send me that gear in a hurry. The whole town is sore at me.
And I will explain that this is a big place with trolley cars and
everything.
The trolleys here run on a track, but they are not electric, they are
run by gasoline motors inside, and are very modern and up-to-date
like everything else in this city. And for over three weeks now the
trolley from the depot has been coming up almost as far as Jim
Ferguson's Drug Store, and then it has to stop and the conductor will
give the people transfers. And they will get out and squeeze past
old man Rogers's house, and get on the other trolley and ride on.
And it is lucky they have two cars. A few years ago they only had
one.
And old man Rogers says if I dont get action by the first of the
week, he is going to hire horses himself, and pull the house where he
wants it. And if I expect to get a cent for it I can just sue him,
and he says he is tired of living in a house sitting in the middle of
the street with the front porch poking into the drug store window and
the people kidding him all the time. But its all on account of his
own foolishness and stubborness, because I told him he had better go
live with his brother in Llano while the house was being moved, but
he is a guy that you cant tell him nothing and so he is living there
with Mrs. Rogers and daughter Mildred, and Mrs. Rogers is cooking on
an oil stove on account they dont know coal is safe in moving, and
now they blame it on me because the oil stove smokes up the whole
house. So you can see I'm in a hurry, and everybody is sore because
the traffic is detoured, and me having to hang red lanterns on the
house every night so people wont run into it, and the Police
Department has served notice on me that I got until next Thursday to
move the house or get pinched. And they had given me a permit to
move the house. But they say a permit aint no 99-year lease. And
that just shows how it is--they all try to make mean cracks like that.
And this afternoon, old Mr. Rogers came up to me and he said, "Dave,
I hope you aint still thinking of getting married?"
And I said, "I sure am," because, as I told you in another letter,
I'm expecting to get married.
Then Mr. Rogers said, "I may have something to say about that, young
man." And I will explain that it is possible that old Mr.
Rogers--whose house I am moving with my tractor--may have some
influence in the matter, owing to the fact that the girl I expect to
marry is named Mildred Rogers, and unfortunately happens to be the
daughter of old Mr. Rogers.
So you see, I want that gear, and I want it quick. I am sending back
the new gear please credit me with the $41.26 I paid on the C.O.D. I
am also sending you the old busted gear. Please look over the old
busted gear and send me one just like it, only with the six teeth not
busted out. Please hurry and remember FORTY-FOUR TEETH, and oblige
yours truly,