"Will you sell this plant, Williams?"

"Not for a song, you may be sure."

"What has it cost you to date?"

"Don't know exactly,—between $80,000 and $90,000, I reckon; the books will show."

"Will you take twenty per cent advance on what the books show? I'm on the square."

"Now see here, old man, what would be the good of selling this factory for $100,000? How could I place the money so that it would bring me half the things which this farm brings me now? Could I live in a better house, or have better food, better service, better friends, or a better way of entertaining them? You know that $5000 or $6000 a year would not supply half the luxury which we secure at Four Oaks, or give half the enjoyment to my family or my friends. Don't you see that it makes little difference what we call our expenses out here, so long as the farm pays them and gives us a surplus besides? The investment is not large for one to get a living from, and it makes possible a lot of things which would be counted rank extravagance in the city. Here's one of them."

A cavalcade was just entering the home lot. First came Jessie Gordon on her thoroughbred mare Lightfoot, and with her, Laura on my Jerry. Laura's foot is as dainty in the stirrup as on the rugs, and she has Jerry's consent and mine to put it where she likes. Following them were Jane and Bill Jackson, with Jane's slender mare looking absolutely delicate beside the big brown gelding that carried Jackson's 190 pounds with ease. The horses all looked as if there had been "something doing," and they were hurried to the stables. The ladies laughed and screamed for a season, as seems necessary for young ladies, and then departed, leaving us in peace. Jackson filled his pipe before remarking:—

"I've been over the ridge into the Dunkard settlement, and they have the cholera there to beat the band. Joe Siegel lost sixty hogs in three days, and there are not ten well hogs in two miles. What do you think of that?"

"That means a hard 'fight mit Siegel,'" said Kyrle.

"It ought to mean a closer quarantine on this side of the ridge," said I, "and you must fumigate your clothes before you appear before your swine, Jackson. It's more likely to be swine plague than cholera at this time of the year, but it's just as bad; one can hardly tell the difference, and we must look sharp."

"How does the contagion travel, Doctor?"

"On horseback, when such chumps as you can be found. You probably have some millions of germs up your sleeve now, or, more likely, on your back, and I wouldn't let you go into my hog pen for a $2000 note. I'm so well quarantined that I don't much fear contagion; but there's always danger from infected dust. The wind blows it about, and any mote may be an automobile for a whole colony of bacteria, which may decide to picnic in my piggery. This dry weather is bad for us, and if we get heavy winds from off the ridge, I'm going to whistle for rain."

"I say, Williams, when you came out here I thought you a tenderfoot, sure enough, who was likely to pay money for experience; but, by the jumping Jews! you've given us natives cards and spades."

"I was a tenderfoot so far as practical experience goes, but I tried to use the everyday sense which God gave me, and I find that's about all a man needs to run a business like this."

"You run it all right, for returns, and that's what we are after; and I'm beginning to catch on. I want you to tell me, before Kyrle here, why you gave me that bull two years ago."

"What's the matter with the bull, Jackson? Isn't he all right?"

"Sure he's all right, and as fine as silk; but why did you give him to me? Why didn't you keep him for yourself?"

"Well, Bill, I thought you would like him, and we were neighbors, and—"

"You thought I would save you the trouble of keeping him, didn't you?"

"Well, perhaps that did have some influence. You see, this is a factory farm from fence to fence, except this forty which Polly bosses, and the utilitarian idea is on top. Keeping the bull didn't exactly run with my notion of economy, especially when I could conveniently have him kept so near, and at the same time be generous to a neighbor."

"That's it, and it's taken me two years to find it out. You're trying to follow that idea all along the line. You're dead right, and I'm going to tag on, if you don't mind. I was glad enough for your present at the time, and I'm glad yet; but I've learned my lesson, and you may bet your dear life that no man will ever again give me a bull."

"That's right, Jackson. Now you have struck the key-note; stick to it, and you will make money twice as fast as you have done. Have a mark, and keep your eye on it, and your plough will turn a straight furrow."

Jackson sent for his horse, and just before he mounted, I said, "Are you thinking of selling your farm?"

"I used to think of it, but I've been to school lately and can 'do my sums' better. No, I guess I won't sell the paternal acres; but who wants to buy?"

"Kyrle, here, is looking for a farm about the size of yours, and to tell you the truth I should like him for a neighbor. It's dollars to doughnuts that I could give him a whole herd of bulls."

"Indeed, you can't do anything of the kind! I wouldn't take a gold dollar from you until I had it tested. I'm on to your curves."

"But seriously, Jackson, I must have more land; my stock will eat me out of house and home by the time the factory is running full steam. What would you say to a proposition of $10,000 for one hundred acres along my north line?"

"A year ago I would have jumped at it. Now I say 'nit.' I need it all, Doctor; I told you I was going to tag on. But what's the matter with the old lady's quarter across your south road?"

"Nothing's the matter with the land, only she won't sell it at any price."

"I know; but that drunken brute of a son will sell as soon as she's under the sod, and they say the poor old girl is on her last legs,—down with distemper or some other beastly disease. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll sound the renegade son and see how he measures. Some one will get it before long, and it might as well be you."

Jackson galloped off, and Kyrle and I sat on the porch and divided the widow's 160-acre mite. It was a good strip of land, lying a fair mile on the south road and a quarter of a mile deep. The buildings were of no value, the fences were ragged to a degree, but I coveted the land. It was the vineyard of Naboth to me, and I planned its future with my friend and accessory sitting by. I destroyed the estimable old lady's house and barns, ran my ploughshares through her garden and flower beds, and turned the home site into one great field of lusty corn, without so much as saying by your leave. Thus does the greed of land grow upon one. But in truth, I saw that I must have more land. My factory would require more than ten thousand bushels of grain, with forage and green foods in proportion, to meet its full capacity, and I could not hope to get so much from the land then under cultivation. Again, in a few years—a very few—the fifty acres of orchard would be no longer available for crops, and this would still further reduce my tillable land. With the orchards out of use, I should have but 124 acres for all crops other than hay. If I could add this coveted 160, it would give me 250 acres of excellent land for intensive farming.

"I should like it on this side of the road," said I, "but I suppose that will have to do."

"What will have to do?" asked Kyrle.

"The 160 acres over there."

"You unconscionable wretch! Have you evicted the poor widow, and she on her deathbed? For stiffening the neck and hardening the heart, commend me to the close-to-nature life of the farmer. I wouldn't own a farm for worlds. It risks one's immortality. Give me the wicked city for pasturage—and a friend who will run a farm, at his own risk, and give me the benefit of it."



CHAPTER XLVIII

MAIDS AND MALLARDS

We have so rarely entered our house with the reader that he knows little of its domestic machinery. So much depends upon this machinery that one must always take it into consideration when reckoning the pleasures and even the comforts of life anywhere, and this is especially true in the country. We have such a lot of people about that our servants cannot sing the song of lonesomeness that makes dolor for most suburbanites. They are "churched" as often as they wish, and we pay city wages; but still it is not all clear sailing in this quarter of Polly's realm. I fancy that we get on better than some of our neighbors; but we do not brag, and I usually feel that I am smoking my pipe in a powder magazine. There is something essentially wrong in the working-girl world, and I am glad that I was not born to set it right. We cannot down the spirit of unrest and improvidence that holds possession of cooks and waitresses, and we needs must suffer it with such patience as we can.

Two of our house servants were more or less permanent; that is, they had been with us since we opened the house, and were as content as restless spirits can be. These were the housekeeper and the cook,—the hub of the house. The former is a Norwegian, tall, angular, and capable, with a knot of yellow hair at the back of her head,—ostensibly for sticking lead pencils into,—and a disposition to keep things snug and clean. Her duties include the general supervision of both houses and the special charge of store-rooms, food cellars, and table supplies of all sorts. She is efficient, she whistles while she works, and I see but little of her. I suspect that Polly knows her well.

The cook, Mary, is small, Irish, gray, with the temper of a pepper-pod and the voice of a guinea-hen suffering from bronchitis, but she can cook like an angel. She is an artist, and I feel as if the seven-dollar-a-week stipend were but a "tip" to her, and that sometime she will present me with a bill for her services. My safeguard, and one that I cherish, is an angry word from her to the housekeeper. She jeeringly asserted that she, the cook, got $2 a week more than she, the housekeeper, did. As every one knows that the housekeeper has $5 a week, I am holding this evidence against the time when Mary asks for a lump sum adequate to her deserts. The number of things which Mary can make out of everything and out of nothing is wonderful; and I am fully persuaded that all the moneys paid to a really good cook are moneys put into the bank. I often make trips to the kitchen to tell Mary that "the dinner was great," or that "Mrs. Kyrle wants the receipt for that pudding," or that "my friend Kyrle asks if he may see you make a salad dressing;" but "don't do it, Mary; let the secret die with you." The cook cackles, like the guinea-hen that she is, but the dishes are none the worse for the commendation.

The laundress is just a washerwoman, so far as I know. She undoubtedly changes with the seasons, but I do not see her, though the clothes are always bleaching on the grass at the back of the house.

The maids are as changeable as old-fashioned silk. There are always two of them; but which two, is beyond me. I tell Polly that Four Oaks is a sprocket-wheel for maids, with two links of an endless chain always on top. It makes but little difference which links are up, so the work goes smoothly. Polly thinks the maids come to Four Oaks just as less independent folk go to the mountains or the shore, for a vacation, or to be able to say to the policeman, "I've been to the country." Their system is past finding out; but no matter what it is, we get our dishes washed and our beds made without serious inconvenience. The wage account in the house amounts to just $25 a week. My pet system of an increasing wage for protracted service doesn't appeal to these birds of passage, who alight long enough to fill their crops with our wild rice and celery, and then take wing for other feeding-grounds. This kind of life seems fitted for mallards and maids, and I have no quarrel with either. From my view, there are happier instincts than those which impel migration; but remembering that personal views are best applied to personal use, I wish both maids and mallards bon voyage.



CHAPTER XLIX

THE SUNKEN GARDEN

Extending directly west from the porch for 150 feet is an open pergola, of simple construction, but fast gaining beauty from the rapid growth of climbers which Polly and Johnson have planted. It is floored with brick for the protection of dainty feet, and near the western end cluster rustic benches, chairs, tables, and such things as women and gardeners love. Facing the west 50 feet of this pergola is Polly's sunken flower garden, which is her special pride. It extends south 100 feet, and is built in the side of the hill so that its eastern wall just shows a coping above the close-cropped lawn. Of course the western wall is much higher, as the lawn slopes sharply; but it was filled in so as to make this wall-enclosed garden quite level. The walls which rise above the flower beds 41/2 feet, are beginning to look decorated, thanks to creeping vines and other things which a cunning gardener and Polly know. Flowers of all sorts—annuals, biennials (triennials, perhaps), and perennials—cover the beds, which are laid out in strange, irregular fashion, far indeed from my rectangular style. These beds please the eye of the mistress, and of her friends, too, if they are candid in their remarks, which I doubt.

While excavating the garden we found a granite boulder shaped somewhat like an egg and nearly five feet long. It was a big thing, and not very shapely; but it came from the soil, and Polly wanted it for the base of her sun-dial. We placed it, big end down, in the mathematical centre of the garden (I insisted on that), and sunk it into the ground to make it solid; then a stone mason fashioned a flat space on the top to accommodate an old brass dial that Polly had found in Boston. The dial is not half bad. From the heavy, octagonal brass base rises a slender quill to cast its shadow on the figured circle, while around this circle old English characters ask, "Am I not wise, who note only bright hours?" A plat of sod surrounds the dial, and Polly goes to it at least once a day to set her watch by the shadow of the quill, though I have told her a hundred times that it is seventeen minutes off standard time. I am convinced that this estimable lady wilfully ignores conventional time and marks her cycles by such divisions as "catalogue time," "seed-buying time," "planting time," "sprouting time," "spraying time," "flowering time," "seed-gathering time," "mulching time," and "dreary time," until the catalogues come again. I know it seemed no time at all until she had let me in to the tune of $687 for the pergola, walls, and garden. She bought the sun-dial with her own money, I am thankful to say, and it doesn't enter into this account. I think it must have cost a pretty penny, for she had a hat "made over" that spring.

Polly has planted the lawn with a lot of shade trees and shrubs, and has added some clumps of fruit trees. Few trees have been planted near the house; the four fine oaks, from which we take our name, stand without rivals and give ample shade. The great black oak near the east end of the porch is a tower of strength and beauty, which is "seen and known of all men," while the three white oaks farther to the west form a clump which casts a grateful shade when the sun begins to decline. The seven acres of forest to the east is left severely alone, save where the carriage drive winds through it, and Polly watches so closely that the foot of the Philistine rarely crushes her wild flowers. Its sacredness recalls the schoolgirl's definition of a virgin forest: "One in which the hand of man has never dared to put his foot into it." Polly wanders in this grove for hours; but then she knows where and how things grow, and her footsteps are followed by flowers. If by chance she brushes one down, it rises at once, shakes off the dust, and says, "I ought to have known better than to wander so far from home."

She keeps a wise eye on the vegetable garden, too, and has stores of knowledge as to seed-time and harvest and the correct succession of garden crops. She and Johnson planned a greenhouse, which Nelson built, for flowers and green stuff through the winter, she said; but I think it is chiefly a place where she can play in the dirt when the weather is bad. Anyhow, that glass house cost the farm $442, and the interest and taxes are going on yet. I as well as Polly had to do some building that autumn. Three more chicken-houses were built, making five in all. Each consists in ten compartments twenty feet wide, of which each is intended to house forty hens. When these houses were completed, I had room for forty pens of forty each, which was my limit for laying hens. In addition was one house of ten pens for half-grown chickens and fattening fowls. It would take the hatch of another year to fill my pens, but one must provide for the future. These three houses cost, in round numbers, $2100,—five times as much as Polly's glass house,—but I was not going to play in them.

I also built a cow-house on the same plan as the first one, but about half the size. This was for the dry cows and the heifers. It cost $2230, and gave me stable room enough for the waiting stock, so that I could count on forty milch cows all the time, when my herd was once balanced. Forty cows giving milk, six hundred swine of all ages, putting on fat or doing whatever other duty came to hand, fifteen or sixteen hundred hens laying eggs when not otherwise engaged, three thousand apple trees striving with all their might to get large enough to bear fruit,—these made up my ideal of a factory farm; and it looked as if one year more would see it complete.

No rain fell in October, and my brook became such a little brook that I dared to correct its ways. We spent a week with teams, ploughs, and scrapers, cutting the fringe and frills away from it, and reducing it to severe simplicity. It is strange, but true, that this reversion to simplicity robbed it of its shy ways and rustic beauty, and left it boldly staring with open eyes and gaping with wide-stretched mouth at the men who turned from it. We put in about two thousand feet of tile drainage on both sides of what Polly called "that ditch," and this completed the improvements on the low lands. The land, indeed, was not too low to bear good crops, but it was lightened by under drainage and yielded more each after year.

The tiles cost me five cents per foot, or $100 for the whole. The work was done by my own men.



CHAPTER L

THE HEADMAN GENERALIZES

Jackson's prophecy came true. The old lady died, and before the ground was fairly settled around her the improvident son accepted a cash offer of $75 per acre for his homestead, and the farm was added to mine. This was in November. I at once spent $640 for 2-1/2 miles of fencing to enclose it in one field, charging the farm account with $12,640 for the land and fence.

This transaction was a bargain, from my point of view; and it was a good sale, from the standpoint of the other man, for he put $12,000 away at five per cent interest, and felt that he need never do a stroke of work again. A lazy man is easily satisfied.

In December I sold 283 hogs. It was a choice lot, as much alike as peas in a pod, and gave an average weight of 276 pounds; but the market was exceedingly low. I received the highest quotation for the month, $3.60 per hundred, and the lot netted $2702.

It seems hard luck to be obliged to sell fine swine at such a price, and a good many farmers would hold their stock in the hope of a rise; but I do not think this prudent. When a pig is 250 days old, if he has been pushed, he has reached his greatest profit-growth; and he should be sold, even though the market be low. If one could be certain that within a reasonable time, say thirty days, there would be a marked advance, it might do to hold; but no one can be sure of this, and it doesn't usually pay to wait. Market the product when at its best, is the rule at Four Oaks. The young hog is undoubtedly at his best from eight to nine months old. He has made a maximum growth on minimum feed, and from that time on he will eat more and give smaller proportionate returns. There is danger, too, that he will grow stale; for he has been subjected to a forcing system which contemplated a definite time limit and which cannot extend much beyond that limit without risks. Force your swine not longer than nine months and sell for what you can get, and you will make more money in the long run than by trying to catch a high market. I sold in December something more than four hundred cockerels, which brought $215. The apples from the old trees were good that year, but not so abundant as the year before, and they brought $337,—$2.25 per tree. The hens laid few eggs in October and November, though they resumed work in December; but the pullets did themselves proud. Sam said he gathered from fourteen to twenty eggs a day from each pen of forty, which is better than forty per cent. We sold nearly eighteen hundred dozen eggs during this quarter, for $553. The butter account showed nearly twenty-eight hundred pounds sold, which brought $894, and the sale of eleven calves brought $180. These sales closed the credit side of our ledger for the year.

Apples $337.00 Calves 130.00 Cockerels 215.00 1785 doz. eggs 553.00 2790 lb. butter 894.00 283 hogs 2702.00 ———— Total $4831.00

In making up the expense account of that year and the previous one, I found that I should be able in future to say with a good deal of exactness what the gross amount would be, without much figuring. The interest account would steadily decrease, I hoped, while the wage account would increase as steadily until it approached $5500; that year it was $4662. Each man who had been on the farm more than six months received $18 more that year than he did the year before, and this increase would continue until the maximum wage of $40 a month was reached; but while some would stay long enough to earn the maximum, others would drop out, and new men would begin work at $20 a month. I felt safe, therefore, in fixing $5500 as the maximum wage limit of any year. Time has proven the correctness of this estimate, for $5372 is the most I have paid for wages during the seven years since this experiment was inaugurated.

The food purchased for cows, hogs, and hens may also be definitely estimated. It costs about $30 a year for each cow, $1 for each hog, and thirty cents for each hen. Everything else comes from the land, and is covered by such fixed charges as interest, wages, taxes, insurance, repairs, and replenishments. The food for the colony at Four Oaks, usually bought at wholesale, doesn't cost more than $5 a month per capita. This seems small to a man who is in the habit of paying cash for everything that enters his doors; but it amply provides for comforts and even for luxuries, not only for the household, but also for the stranger within the gates. In the city, where water and ice cost money and the daily purchase of food is taxed by three or four middlemen, one cannot realize the factory farmer's independence of tradesmen. I do not mean that this sum will furnish terrapin and champagne, but I do not understand that terrapin and champagne are necessary to comfort, health, or happiness.

Let us look for a moment at some of the things which the factory farmer does not buy, and perhaps we shall see that a comfortable existence need not demand much more. His cows give him milk, cream, butter, and veal; his swine give roast pig, fresh pork, salt pork, ham, bacon, sausages, and lard; his hens give eggs and poultry; his fields yield hulled corn, samp, and corn meal; his orchards give apples, pears, peaches, quinces, plums, and cherries; his bushes give currants, gooseberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries; his vines give grapes; his forests give hickory nuts, butternuts, and hazel nuts; and, best of all, his garden gives more than twenty varieties of toothsome and wholesome vegetables in profusion. The whole fruit and vegetable product of the temperate zone is at his door, and he has but to put forth his hand and take it. The skilled housewife makes wonderful provision against winter from the opulence of summer, and her storehouse is crowded with innumerable glass cells rich in the spoils of orchard and garden. There is scant use for the grocer and the butcher under such conditions. I am so well convinced that my estimate of $5 a month is liberal that I have taxed the account with all the salt used on the farm.



CHAPTER LI

THE GRAND-GIRLS

The click of Jane's hammer began to be heard in November, and hardly a day passed without some music from this "Forge in the Forest." Sir Tom made a permanent station of the workshop, where he spent hours in a comfortable chair, drawing nourishment from the head of his cane and pleasure from watching the girl at the anvil. I suspect that he planted himself in the corner of the forge to safeguard Jane; for he had an abiding fear that she would take fire, and he wished to be near at hand to put her out. He procured a small Babcock extinguisher and a half-dozen hand-grenades, and with these instruments he constituted himself a very efficient volunteer fire department. He made her promise, also, that she would have definite hours for heavy work, that he might be on watch; and so fond was she of his company, or rather of his presence, for he talked but little, that she kept close to the schedule.

Laura had a favorite corner in the forge, where she often turned a hem or a couplet. She was equally dexterous at either; and Sir Tom watched her, too, with an admiring eye. I once heard him say:—

"Milady Laura, it is the regret of me life that I came into the world a generation too soon."

Laura sometimes went away—she called it "going home," but we scoffed the term—and the doldrums blew until she returned. Sir Tom dined with us nearly every evening through the fall and early winter; and when he, and Kate and Tom and the grand-girls, and the Kyrles, and Laura were at Four Oaks, there was little to be desired. The grand-girls were nearly five and seven now, and they were a great help to the Headman. My terrier was no closer to my heels from morning to night than were these youngsters. They took to country life like the young animals they were, and made friends with all, from Thompson down. They must needs watch the sheep as they walked their endless way on the treadmill night and morning; they thrust their hands into hundreds of nests and placed the spoils in Sam's big baskets; they watched the calves at their patent feeders, which deceived the calves, but not the girls; they climbed into the grain bins and tobogganed on the corn; they haunted the cow-barn at milking time and wondered much; but the chiefest of their delights was the beautiful white pig which Anderson gave them. A little movable pen was provided for this favorite, and the youngsters fed it several times a day with warm milk from a nursing-bottle, like any other motherless child. The pig loved its foster-mothers, and squealed for them most of the time when it was not eating or sleeping; fortunately, a pig can do much of both. It grew playful and intelligent, and took on strange little human ways which made one wonder if Darwin were right in his conclusion that we are all ascended from the ape. I have seen features and traits of character so distinctly piggish as to rouse my suspicions that the genealogical line is not free from a cross of sus scrofa. The pig grew in stature and in wisdom, but not in grace, from day to day, until it threatened to dominate the place. However, it was lost during the absence of its friends,—to be replaced by a younger one at the next visit.

"Do your pigs get lost when you are away?" asked No. 1.

"Not often, dear."

"It's only pet pigs that runds away," said No. 2, "and I don't care, for it rooted me."

The pet pig is still a favorite with the grand-girls, but it always runs away in the fall.

Kate loved to come to Four Oaks, and she spent so much time there that she often said:—

"We have no right to that $1200; we spend four times as much time here as you all do in town."

"That's all right daughter, but I wish you would spend twice as much time here as you do, and I also wish that the $1200 were twice as much as it is."

Time was running so smoothly with us that we "knocked on wood" each morning for fear our luck would break.

The cottage which had once served as a temporary granary, and which had been moved to the building line two years before, was now turned into an overflow house against the time when Jack should come home for the winter vacation. Polly had decided to have "just as many as we can hold, and some more," and as the heaviest duties fell upon her, the rest of us could hardly find fault. The partitions were torn out of the cottage, and it was opened up into one room, except for the kitchen, which was turned into a bath-room. Six single iron beds were put up, and the place was made comfortable by an old-fashioned, air-tight, sheet-iron stove with a great hole in the top through which big chunks and knots of wood were fed. This stove would keep fire all night, and, while not up to latter-day demands, it was quite satisfactory to the warm-blooded boys who used it. The expense of overhauling the cottage was $214. Tom, Kate, and the grand-girls were to be with us, of course, and so were the Kyrles, Sir Tom, Jessie Gordon, Florence, Madeline, and Alice Chase. Jack was to bring Jarvis and two other men besides Frank and Phil of last year's party.

The six boys were bestowed in the cottage, where they made merry without seriously interrupting sleep in the main house. The others found comfortable quarters under our roof, except Sir Tom, who would go home some time in the night, to return before lunch the next day.

With such a houseful of people, the cook was worked to the bone; but she gloried in it, and cackled harder than ever. I believe she gave warning twice during those ten days; but Polly has a way with her which Mary cannot resist. I do not think we could have driven that cook out of the house with a club when there was such an opportunity for her to distinguish herself. Her warnings were simply matters of habit.

The holidays were filled with such things as a congenial country house-party can furnish—the wholesomest, jolliest things in the world; and the end, when it came, was regretted by all. I grew to feel a little bit jealous of Jarvis's attentions to Jane, for they looked serious, and she was not made unhappy by them. Jarvis was all that was honest and manly, but I could not think of giving up Jane, even to the best of fellows. I wanted her for my old age. I suspect that a loving father can dig deeper into the mud of selfishness than any other man, and yet feel all the time that he is doing God service. It is in accord with nature that a daughter should take the bit in her teeth and bolt away from this restraining selfishness, but the man who is left by the roadside cannot always see it in that light.



CHAPTER LII

THE THIRD BECKONING

On the afternoon of December 31 I called a meeting of the committee of ways and means, and Polly and I locked ourselves in my office. It was then two and a half years since we commenced the experiment of building a factory farm, which was to supply us with comforts, luxuries, and pleasures of life, and yet be self-supporting: a continuous experiment in economics.

The building of the factory was practically completed, though not all of its machinery had yet been installed. We had spent our money freely,—too freely, perhaps; and we were now ready to watch the returns. Polly said:—

"There are some things we are sure of: we like the country, and it likes us. I have spent the happiest year of my life here. We've entertained more friends than ever before, and they've been better entertained, so that we are all right from the social standpoint. You are stronger and better than ever before, and so am I. Credit the farm with these things, Mr. Headman, and you'll find that it doesn't owe us such an awful amount after all."

"Are these things worth $100,000?"

"Now, John, you don't mean that you've spent $100,000! What in the world have you done with it? Just pigs and cows and chickens—"

"And greenhouses and sunken gardens and pergolas and kickshaws," said I. "But seriously, Polly, I think that we can show value for all that we have spent; and the whole amount is not three times what our city house cost, and that only covered our heads."

"How do you figure values here?"

"We get a great deal more than simply shelter out of this place, and we have tangible values, too. Here are some of them: 480 acres of excellent land, so well groomed and planted that it is worth of any man's money, $120 per acre, or $57,600; buildings, water-plant, etc., all as good as new, $40,000; 44 cows, $4400; 10 heifers nearly two years old, $500; 8 horses, $1200; 50 brood sows, $1000; 350 young pigs, $1700; 1300 laying hens, $1300; tools and machinery, $1500; that makes well over $100,000 in sight, besides all the things you mentioned before."

"You haven't counted the six horses in my barn."

"They haven't been charged to the farm, Polly."

"Or the trees you've planted?"

"No, they go with the land to increase its value."

"And my gardens, too?"

"Yes, they are fixtures and count with the acres. You see, this, land didn't cost quite $75 an acre, but I hold it $50 better for what we've done to it; I don't believe Bill Jackson would sell his for less. I offered him $10,000 for a hundred acres, and he refused. We've put up the price of real estate in this neighborhood, Mrs. Williams."

"Well, let's get at the figures. I'm dying to see how we stand."

"I have summarized them here:—

"To additional land and development of plant $20,353.00 To interest on previous investment 4,220.00 Wages 4,662.00 Food for twenty-five people 1,523.00 Food for stock 2,120.00 Taxes and insurance 207.00 Shoeing and repairs 309.00 ————— "Making in all $33,394.00

spent this year.

"The receipts are:—

"First quarter $1,297.00 Second quarter 1,706.00 Third quarter 3,284.00 Fourth quarter 4,831.00 ————- "Making $11,118.00

"But we agreed to pay $4000 a year to the farm for our food and shelter, if it did as well by us as the town house did. Shall we do it, Polly?"

"Why, of course; we've been no end more comfortable here."

"Well, if we don't expect to get something for nothing, I think we ought to add it. Adding $4000 will make the returns from the farm $15,118, leaving $18,276 to add to the interest-bearing debt. Last year this debt was $84,404. Add this year's deficit, and we have $102,680. A good deal of money, Polly, but I showed you well over $100,000 in assets,—at our own price, to be sure, but not far wrong."

"Will you ever have to increase the debt?"

"I think not. I believe we shall reduce it a little next year, and each year thereafter. But, supposing it only pays expenses, how can you put on as much style on the interest of $100,000 anywhere else as you can here? It can't be done. When the fruit comes in and this factory is running full time, it will earn well on toward $25,000 a year, and it will not cost over $14,000 to run it, interest and all. It won't take long at that rate to wipe out the interest-bearing debt. You'll be rich, Polly, before you're ten years older."

"You are rich now, in imagination and expectation, Mr. Headman, but I'll bank with you for a while longer. But what's the use of charging the farm with interest when you credit it with our keeping?"

"There isn't much reason in that, Polly. It's about as broad as it is long. I simply like to keep books in that way. We charge the farm with a little more than $4000 interest, and we credit it with just $4000 for our food and shelter. We'll keep on in this way because I like it."



CHAPTER LIII

THE MILK MACHINE

In opening the year 1898 I was faced by a larger business proposition than I had originally planned. When I undertook the experiment of a factory farm, I placed the limit of capital to be invested at about $60,000. Now I found that I had exceeded that amount by a good many thousand dollars, and I knew that the end was not yet. The factory was not complete, and it would be several years before it would be at its best in output. While it had cost me more than was originally contemplated, and while there was yet more money to be spent, there was still no reason for discouragement. Indeed, I felt so certain of ultimate profits that I was ready to put as much into it as could possibly be used to advantage.

The original plan was for a soiling farm on which I could milk thirty cows, fatten two hundred hogs, feed a thousand hens, and wait for thirty-five hundred fruit trees to come to a profitable age. With this in view, I set apart forty acres of high, dry land, for the feeding-grounds, twenty acres of which was devoted to the cows; and I now found that this twenty-acre lot would provide an ample exercise field for twice that number. It was in grass (timothy, red-top, and blue grass), and the cows nibbled persistently during the short hours each day when they were permitted to be on it; but it was never reckoned as part of their ration. The sod was kept in good condition and the field free from weeds, by the use of the mowing-machine, set high, every ten or twenty days, according to the season. Following the mower, we use a spring-tooth rake which bunched the weeds and gathered or broke up the droppings; and everything the rake caught was carted to the manure vats. Our big Holsteins do not suffer from close quarters, so far as I am able to judge, neither do they take on fat. From thirty minutes to three hours (depending on the weather), is all the outing they get each day; but this seems sufficient for their needs. The well-ventilated stable with its moderate temperature suits the sedentary nature of these milk machines, and I am satisfied with the results. I cannot, of course, speak with authority of the comparative merits of soiling versus grazing, for I have had no experience in the latter; but in theory soiling appeals to me, and in practice it satisfies me.

When I found I could keep more cows on the land set apart for them, I built another cow stable for the dry cows and the heifers, and added four stalls to my milk stable by turning each of the hospital wards into two stalls.

The ten heifers which I reserved in the spring of 1896 were now nearly two years old. They were expected to "come in" in the early autumn, when they would supplement the older herd. The cows purchased in 1895 were now five years old, and quite equal to the large demand which we made upon them. They had grown to be enormous creatures, from thirteen hundred to fourteen hundred pounds in weight, and they were proving their excellence as milk producers by yielding an average of forty pounds a day. We had, and still have, one remarkable milker, who thinks nothing of yielding seventy pounds when fresh, and who doesn't fall below twenty-five pounds when we are forced to dry her off. I have no doubt that she would be a successful candidate for advanced registration if we put her to the test. For ten months in each year these cows give such quantities of milk as would surprise a man not acquainted with this noble Dutch family. My five common cows were good of their kind, but they were not in the class with the Holsteins. They were not "robber" cows, for they fully earned their food; but there was no great profit in them. To be sure, they did not eat more than two-thirds as much as the Holsteins; but that fact did not stand to their credit, for the basic principle of factory farming is to consume as much raw material as possible and to turn out its equivalent in finished product. The common cows consumed only two-thirds as much raw material as the Holsteins, and turned out rather less than two-thirds of their product, while they occupied an equal amount of floor space; consequently they had to give place to more competent machines. They were to be sold during the season.

Why dairymen can be found who will pay $50 apiece for cows like those I had for sale (better, indeed, than the average), is beyond my method of reckoning values. Twice $50 will buy a young cow bred for milk, and she would prove both bread and milk to the purchaser in most cases. The question of food should settle itself for the dairyman as it does for the factory farmer. The more food consumed, the better for each, if the ratio of milk be the same.

My Holsteins are great feeders; more than 2 tons of grain, 2-1/2 tons of hay, and 4 or 5 tons of corn fodder, in addition to a ton of roots or succulent vegetables, pass through their great mouths each year. The hay is nearly equally divided between timothy, oat hay, and alfalfa; and when I began to figure the gross amount that would be required for my 50 Holstein gourmands, I saw that the widow's farm had been purchased none too quickly. To provide 100 tons of grain, 125 tons of hay, and 200 or 300 tons of corn fodder for the cows alone, was no slight matter; but I felt prepared to furnish this amount of raw material to be transmuted into golden butter. The Four Oaks butter had made a good reputation, and the four oak leaves stamped on each mould was a sufficient guarantee of excellence. My city grocer urged a larger product, and I felt safe in promising it; at the same time, I held him up for a slight advance in price. Heretofore it had netted me 32 cents a pound, but from January 1, 1898, I was to have 33-1/3 cents for each pound delivered at the station at Exeter, I agreeing to furnish at least 50 pounds a day, six days in a week.

This was not always easily done during the first eight months of that year, and I will confess to buying 640 pounds to eke out the supply for the colony; but after the young heifers came in, there was no trouble, and the purchased butter was more than made up to our local grocer.

It will be more satisfactory to deal with dairy matters in lump sums from now on. The contract with the city grocer still holds, and, though he often urges me to increase my herd, I still limit the supply to 300 pounds a week,—sometimes a little more, but rarely less. I believe that 38 to 44 cows in full flow of milk will make the best balance in my factory; and a well-balanced factory is what I am after.

I am told that animals are not machines, and that they cannot be run as such. My animals are; and I run them as I would a shop. There is no sentiment in my management. If a cow or a hog or a hen doesn't work in a satisfactory way, it ceases to occupy space in my shop, just as would an imperfect wheel. The utmost kindness is shown to all animals at Four Oaks. This rule is the most imperative one on the place, and the one in which no "extenuating circumstances" are taken into account. There are two equal reasons for this: the first is a deep-rooted aversion to cruelty in all forms; and the second is, it pays. But kindness to animals doesn't imply the necessity of keeping useless ones or those whose usefulness is below one's standard. If a man will use the intelligence and attention to detail in the management of stock that is necessary to the successful running of a complicated machine, he will find that his stock doesn't differ greatly from his machine. The trouble with most farmers is that they think the living machine can be neglected with impunity, because it will not immediately destroy itself or others, and because it is capable of a certain amount of self-maintenance; while the dead machine has no power of self-support, and must receive careful and punctual attention to prevent injury to itself and to other property. If a dairyman will feed his cows as a thresher feeds the cylinder of his threshing-machine, he will find that the milk will flow from the one about as steadily as the grain falls from the other.

Intensive factory farming means the use of the best machines pushed to the limit of their capacity through the period of their greatest usefulness, and then replaced by others. Pushing to the limit of capacity is in no sense cruelty. It is predicated on the perfect health of the animal, for without perfect condition, neither machine nor animal can do its best work. It is simply encouraging to a high degree the special function for which generations of careful breeding have fitted the animal.

That there is gratification in giving milk, no well-bred cow or mother will deny. It is a joyous function to eat large quantities of pleasant food and turn it into milk. Heredity impels the cow to do this, and it would take generations of wild life to wean her from it. As well say that the cataleptic trance of the pointer, when the game bird lies close and the delicate scent fills his nostrils, is not a joy to him, or that the Dalmatian at the heels of his horse, or the foxhound when Reynard's trail is warm, receive no pleasure from their specialties.

Do these animals feel no joy in the performance of service which is bred into their bones and which it is unnatural or freakish for them to lack? No one who has watched the "bred-for-milk" cow can doubt that the joys of her life are eating, drinking, sleeping, and giving milk. Pushing her to the limit of her capacity is only intensifying her life, though, possibly, it may shorten it by a year or two. While she lives she knows all the happiness of cow life, and knows it to the full. What more can she ask? She would starve on the buffalo grass which supports her half-wild sister, "northers" would freeze her, and the snow would bury her. She is a product of high cow-civilization, and as such she must have the intelligent care of man or she cannot do her best. With this care she is a marvellous machine for the making of the only article of food which in itself is competent to support life in man. If my Holsteins are not machines, they resemble them so closely that I will not quarrel with the name.

What is true of the cow, is true also of the pork-making machine that we call the hog. His wild and savage progenitor is lost, and we have in his place a sluggish animal that is a very model as a food producer. His three pleasures are eating, sleeping, and growing fat. He follows these pleasures with such persistence that 250 days are enough to perfect him. It can certainly be no hardship to a pig to encourage him in a life of sloth and gluttony which appeals to his taste and to my profit.

Custom and interest make his life ephemeral; I make it comfortable. From the day of his birth until we separate, I take watchful care of him. During infancy he is protected from cold and wet, and his mother is coddled by the most nourishing foods, that she may not fail in her duty to him. During childhood he is provided with a warm house, a clean bed, and a yard in which to disport himself, and is fed for growth and bone on skim-milk, oatmeal, and sweet alfalfa. During his youth, corn meal is liberally added to his diet, also other dainties which he enjoys and makes much of; and during his whole life he has access to clean water, and to the only medicine which a pig needs,—a mixture of ashes, charcoal, salt, and sulphur.

When he has spent 250 happy days with me, we part company with feelings of mutual respect,—he to finish his mission, I to provide for his successor.

My early plan was to turn off 200 of this finished product each year, but I soon found that I could do much better. One can raise a crop of hogs nearly as quickly as a crop of corn, and with much more profit, if the food be at hand. There was likely to be an abundance of food. I was more willing to sell it in pig skins than in any other packages. My plan was now to turn off, not 200 hogs each year, but 600 or more. I had 60 well-bred sows, young and old, and I could count on them to farrow at least three times in two years. The litters ought to average 7 each, say 22 pigs in two years; 60 times 22 are 1320, and half of 1320 is 660. Yes, at that rate, I could count on about 600 finished hogs to sell each year. But if my calculations were too high, I could easily keep 10 more brood sows, for I had sufficient room to keep them healthy.

The two five-acre lots, Nos. 3 and 5, had been given over to the brood sows when they were not caring for young litters in the brood-house. Comfortable shelters and a cemented basin twelve feet by twelve, and one foot deep, had been built in each lot. The water-pipe that ran through the chicken lot (No. 4) connected with these basins, as did also a drain-pipe to the drain in the north lane, so that it was easy to turn on fresh water and to draw off that which was soiled. Through this device my brood sows had access to a water bath eight inches deep, whenever they were in the fields. My hogs, young or old, have never been permitted to wallow in mud. We have no mud-holes at Four Oaks to grow stale and breed disease. The breeding hogs have exercise lots and baths, but the young growing and fattening stock have neither. They are kept in runs twenty feet by one hundred, in bunches of from twenty to forty, according to age, from the time they are weaned until they leave the place for good. This plan, which I did not intend to change, opened a question in my mind that gave me pause. It was this: Can I hope, even with the utmost care, to keep the house for growing and fattening swine free from disease if I keep it constantly full of swine?

The more I thought about it the less probable it appeared. The pig-house had cost me $4320. Another would cost as much, if not more, and I did not like to go to the expense unless it were necessary. I worked over this problem for several days, and finally came to the conclusion that I should never feel easy about my swine until I had two houses for them, besides the brood-house for the sows. I therefore gave the order to Nelson to build another swine-house as soon as spring opened. My plan was, and I carried it out, to move all the colonies every three months, and to have the vacant house thoroughly cleaned, sprayed with a powerful germicide, and whitewashed. The runs were to be turned over, when the weather would permit, and the ground sown to oats or rye.

The new house was finished in June, and the pigs were moved into it on July 1st with a lease of three months. My mind has been easy on the question of the health of my hogs ever since; and with reason, for there has been no epizooetic or other serious form of disease in my piggery, in spite of the fact that there are often more than 1200 pigs of all degrees crowded into this five-acre lot. The two pig-houses and the brood-house, with their runs, cover the whole of the lot, except the broad street of sixty feet just inside my high quarantine fence, which encloses the whole of it.



CHAPTER LIV

BACON AND EGGS

Each hog turned out from my piggery weighing 270 pounds or more, has eaten of my substance not less than 500 pounds of grain, 250 pounds of chopped alfalfa, 250 pounds of roots or vegetables, and such quantities of skimmed milk and swill as have fallen to his share. I could reckon the approximate cost of these foods, but I will not do so. All but the middlings and oil meal come from the farm and are paid for by certain fixed charges heretofore mentioned. The middlings and oil meal are charged in the "food for animals" account at the rate of $1 a year for each finished hog.

The truth is that a large part of the food which enters into the making of each 300 pounds of live pork, is of slow sale, and that for some of it there is no sale at all,—for instance, house swill, dish-water, butter-washings, garden weeds, lawn clippings, and all sorts of coarse vegetables. A hog makes half his growth out of refuse which has no value, or not sufficient to warrant the effort and expense of selling it. He has unequalled facilities for turning non-negotiable scrip into convertible bonds, and he is the greatest moneymaker on the farm. If the grain ration were all corn, and if there were a roadside market for it at 35 cents a bushel, it would cost $3.12; the alfalfa would be worth $1.45, and the vegetables probably 65 cents, under like conditions, making a total of $5.22 as a possible gross value of the food which the hog has eaten. The gross value of these things, however, is far above their net value when one considers time and expense of sale. The hog saves all this trouble by tucking under his skin slow-selling remnants of farm products and making of them finished assets which can be turned into cash at a day's notice.

To feed the hogs on the scale now planned, I had to provide for something like 7000 bushels of grain, chiefly corn and oats, 100 tons of alfalfa, and an equal amount of vegetables, chiefly sugar beets and mangel-wurzel. Certainly the widow's land would be needed.

The poultry had also outgrown my original plans, and I had built with reference to my larger views. There were five houses on the poultry lot, each 200 feet long, and each divided into ten equal pens. Four of these houses were for the laying hens, which were divided into flocks of 40 each; while the other house was for the growing chickens and for cockerels being fattened for market.

There were now on hand more than 1300 pullets and hens, and I instructed Sam to run his incubator overtime that season, so as to fill our houses by autumn. I should need 800 or 900 pullets to make our quota good, for most of the older hens would have to be disposed of in the autumn,—all but about 200, which would be kept until the following spring to breed from.

I believe that a three-year-old hen that has shown the egg habit is the best fowl to breed from, and it is the custom at Four Oaks to reserve specially good pens for this purpose. The egg habit is unquestionably as much a matter of heredity as the milk or the fat producing habit, and should be as carefully cultivated. With this end in view, Sam added young cockerels to four of his best-producing flocks on January 1, and by the 15th he was able to start his incubators.

Breeding and feeding for eggs is on the same principle as feeding and breeding for milk. It is no more natural for a hen to lay eggs for human consumption than it is for the robin to do so, or for the cow to give more milk than is sufficient for her calf. Man's necessity has made demands upon both cow and hen, and man's intelligence has converted individualists into socialists in both of these races. They no longer live for themselves alone. As the cow, under favorable conditions, finds pleasure in giving milk, so does the hen under like conditions take delight in giving eggs,—else why the joyous cackle when leaving her nest after doing her full duty? She gloats over it, and glories in it, and announces her satisfaction to the whole yard. It is something to be proud of, and the cackling hen knows it better than you or I. It can be no hardship to push this egg machine to the limit of its capacity. It adds new zest to the life of the hen, and multiplies her opportunities for well-earned self-congratulation.

Our hens are fed for eggs, and we get what we feed for. I said of my hens that I would not ask them to lay more than eight dozen eggs each year, and I will stick to what I said. But I do not reject voluntary contributions beyond this number. Indeed, I accept them with thanks, and give Biddy a word of commendation for her gratuity. Eight dozen eggs a year will pay a good profit, but if each of my hens wishes to present me with two dozen more, I slip 62 cents into my pocket and say, "I am very much obliged to you, miss," or madam, as the case may be. Most of my hens do remember me in this substantial way, and the White Wyandottes are in great favor with the Headman.

The houses in which my hens live are almost as clean as the one I inhabit (and Polly is tidy to a degree); their food is as carefully prepared as mine, and more punctually served; their enemies are fended off, and they are never frightened by dogs or other animals, for the five-acre lot on which their houses and runs are built is enclosed by a substantial fence that prevents any interloping; book agents never disturb their siestas, nor do tree men make their lives hideous with lithographs of impossible fruit on improbable trees. Whether I am indebted to one or to all of these conditions for my full egg baskets, I am unable to say; but I do not purpose to make any change, for my egg baskets are as full as a reasonable man could wish. As nearly as I can estimate, my hens give thirty per cent egg returns as a yearly average—about 120 eggs for each hen in 365 days. This is more than I ask of them, but I do not refuse their generosity.

Every egg is worth, in my market, 2-1/2 cents, which means that the yearly product of each hen could be sold for $3. Something more than two thousand dozen are consumed by the home colony or the incubators; the rest find their way to the city in clean cartons of one dozen each, with a stencil of Four Oaks and a guarantee that they are not twenty-four hours old when they reach the middleman.

In return for this $3 a year, what do I give my hens besides a clean house and yard? A constant supply of fresh water, sharp grits, oyster shells, and a bath of road dust and sifted ashes, to which is added a pinch of insect powder. Twice each day five pounds of fresh skim-milk is given to each flock of forty. In the morning they have a warm mash composed of (for 1600 hens) 50 pounds of alfalfa hay cut fine and soaked all night in hot water, 50 pounds of corn meal, 50 pounds of oat meal, 50 pounds of bran, and 20 pounds of either meat meal or cotton-seed meal. At noon they get 100 pounds of mixed grains—wheat and buckwheat usually—with some green vegetables to pick at; and at night 125 to 150 pounds of whole corn. There are variations of this diet from time to time, but no radical change. I have read much of a balanced ration, but I fancy a hen will balance her own ration if you give her the chance.

Milk is one of the most important items on this bill of fare, and all hens love it. It should be fed entirely fresh, and the crocks or earthen dishes from which it is eaten should be thoroughly cleansed each day. Four ounces for each hen is a good daily ration, and we divide this into two feedings.

Our 1600 hens eat about 75 tons of grain a year. Add to this the 100 tons which 50 cows will require, 200 tons for the swine, and 25 tons for the horses, and we have 400 tons of grain to provide for the stock on the factory farm. Nearly a fourth of this, in the shape of bran, gluten meal, oil meal, and meat meal, must be purchased, for we have no way of producing it. For the other 300 tons we must look to the land or to a low market. Three hundred tons of mixed grains means something like 13,000 bushels, and I cannot hope to raise this amount from my land at present.

Fortunately the grain market was to my liking in January of 1898; and though there were still more than 7000 bushels in my granary, I purchased 5000 bushels of corn and as much oats against a higher market. The corn cost 27 cents a bushel and the oats 22, delivered at Exeter, the 10,000 bushels amounting to $2450, to be charged to the farm account.

I was now prepared to face the food problem, for I had more than 17,000 bushels of grain to supplement the amount the farm would produce, and to tide me along until cheap grain should come again, or until my land should produce enough for my needs. The supply in hand plus that which I could reasonably expect to raise, would certainly provide for three years to come, and this is farther than the average farmer looks into the future. But I claim to be more enterprising than an average farmer, and determined to keep my eyes open and to take advantage of any favorable opportunity to strengthen my position.

In the meantime it was necessary to force my trees, and to secure more help for the farm work. To push fruit trees to the limit of healthy growth is practical and wise. They can accomplish as much in growth and development in three years, when judiciously stimulated, as in five or six years of the "lick-and-a-promise" kind of care which they usually receive.

A tree must be fed first for growth and afterward for fruit, just as a pig is managed, if one wishes quick returns. To plant a tree and leave it to the tenderness of nature, with only occasional attention, is to make the heart sick, for it is certain to prove a case of hope deferred. In the fulness of time the tree and "happy-go-lucky" nature will prove themselves equal to the development of fruit; but they will be slow in doing it. It is quite as well for the tree, and greatly to the advantage of the horticulturist, to cut two or three years out of this unprofitable time. All that is necessary to accomplish this is: to keep the ground loose for a space around the tree somewhat larger than the spread of its branches; to apply fertilizers rich in nitrogen; to keep the whole of the cultivated space mulched with good barn-yard manure, increasing the thickness of the mulch with coarse stuff in the fall, so as to lengthen the season of root activity; and to draw the mulch aside about St. Patrick's Day, that the sun's rays may warm the earth as early as possible. Moderate pruning, nipping back of exuberant branches, and two sprayings of the foliage with Bordeaux mixture, to keep fungus enemies in check, comprise all the care required by the growing tree. This treatment will condense the ordinary growth of five years into three, and the tree will be all the better for the forcing.

As soon as fruit spurs and buds begin to show themselves, the treatment should be modified, but not remitted. Less nitrogen and more phosphoric acid and potash are to be used, and the mulch should not be removed in the early spring. The objects now are, to stimulate the fruit buds and to retard activity in the roots until the danger from late frosts is past. As a result of this kind of treatment, many varieties of apple trees will give moderate crops when the roots are seven, and the trunks are six years old. Fruit buds showed in abundance on many of my trees in the fall of 1897, especially on the Duchess and the Yellow Transparent, and I looked for a small apple harvest that year.



CHAPTER LV

THE OLD TIME FARM-HAND

With all my industries thus increasing, the necessity for more help became imperative. French and Judson had their hands more than full in the dairy barns, and had to be helped out by Thompson. Anderson could not give the swine all the attention they needed, and was assisted by Otto, who proved an excellent swineherd. Sam had the aid of Lars's boys with the poultry, and very efficient aid it was, considering the time they could give to it. They had to be off with the market wagon at 7.40, and did not return from school until 4 P.M. Lars was busy in the carriage barn; and though we spared him as much as possible from driving, he had to be helped out by Johnson at such times as the latter could spare from his greenhouse and hotbeds. Zeb took care of the farm teams; but the winter's work of distributing forage and grain, getting up wood and ice, hauling manure, and so forth, had to be done in a desultory and irregular manner. The spring work would find us wofully behindhand if I did not look sharp. I had been looking sharp since January set in, and had experienced, for the first time, real difficulties in finding anything like good help. Hitherto I had been especially fortunate in this regard. I had met some reverses, but in the main good luck had followed me. I had nine good men who seemed contented and who were all saving money,—an excellent sign of stability and contentment. Even Lars had not fallen from grace but once, and that could hardly be charged against him, for Jack and Jarvis had tempted him beyond resistance; while Sam's nose was quite blanched, and he was to all appearances firmly seated on the water wagon. Really, I did not know what labor troubles meant until 1898, but since then I have not had clear sailing.

From my previous experience with working-men, I had formed the opinion that they were reasoning and reasonable human beings,—with peculiarities, of course; and that as a class they were ready to give good service for fair wages and decent treatment. In early life I had been a working-man myself, and I thought I could understand the feelings and sympathize with the trials of the laborer from the standpoint of personal experience. I was sorely mistaken. The laboring man of to-day is a different proposition from the man who did manual labor "before the war." That he is more intelligent, more provident, happier, or better in any way, I sincerely doubt; that he is restless, dissatisfied, and less efficient, I believe; that he is unreasonable in his demands and regardless of the interests of his employer, I know. There are many shining exceptions, and to these I look for the ultimate regeneration of labor; but the rule holds true.

I do not believe that the principles of life have changed in forty years. I do not believe that an intelligent, able-bodied man need be a servant all his life, or that industry and economy miss their rewards, or that there is any truth in the theory that men cannot rise out of the rut in which they happen to find themselves. The trouble is with the man, not with the rut. He spends his time in wallowing rather than in diligently searching for an outlet or in honestly working his way up to it. Heredity and environment are heavy weights, but industry and sobriety can carry off heavier ones. I have sympathy for weakness of body or mind, and patience for those over whom inheritance has cast a baleful spell; but I have neither patience nor sympathy for a strong man who rails at his condition and makes no determined effort to better it.

The time and money wasted in strikes, agitations, and arbitrations, if put to practical use, would better the working-man enough faster than these futile efforts do. I have no quarrel with unions or combinations of labor, so far as they have the true interests of labor for an object; but I do quarrel with the spirit of mob rule and the evidences of conspicuous waste, which have grown so rampant as to overshadow the helpful hand and to threaten, not the stability of society—for in the background I see six million conservative sons of the soil who will look to the stability of things when the time comes—but the unions themselves.

I remember my first summer on a farm. It lasted from the first day of April to the thirty-first day of October, and on the evening of that day I carried to my father $28, the full wage for seven months. I could not have spent one cent during that time, for I carried the whole sum home; but I do not remember that I was conscious of any want. The hours on the farm were not short; an eight-hour day would have been considered but a half-day. We worked from sun to sun, and I grew and knew no sorrow or oppression. The next year I received the munificent wage of $6 a month, and the following year, $8.

In after years, in brick-yards, sawmills, lumber woods, or harvest fields, there was no arbitrary limit put upon the amount of work to be done. If I chose to do the work of a man and a half, I got $1.50 for doing it, and it would have been a bold and sturdy delegate who tried to hold me from it. I felt no need of help from outside. I was fit to care for myself, and I minded not the long hours, the hard work, or the hard bed. This life was preliminary to a fuller one, and it served its use. I know what tired legs and back mean, and I know that one need not have them always if he will use the ordinary sense which God gives. Genius, or special cleverness, is not necessary to get a man out of the rut of hard manual labor. Just plain, everyday sense will do. But before I had secured the three men for whom I was in search, I began to feel that this common sense of which we speak so glibly is a rare commodity under the working-man's hat. I advertised, sent to agencies and intelligence offices, interviewed and inspected, consulted friends and enemies, and so generally harrowed my life that I was fit to give up the whole business and retire into a cave.

By actual count, I saw more than one hundred men, of all ages, sizes, and colors. Eight of these were tried, of whom five were found wanting. Early in February I had settled upon three sober men to add to our colony. As none of these lasted the year out, I may be forgiven for not introducing them to the reader. They served their purpose, and mine too, and then drifted on.



CHAPTER LVI

THE SYNDICATE

I do not wish to take credit for things which gave me pleasure in the doing, or to appear altruistic in my dealings with the people employed at Four Oaks. I tell of our business and other relations because they are details of farm history and rightfully belong to these pages. If I dealt fairly by my men and established relations of mutual confidence and dependence, it was not in the hope that my ways might be approved and commended, but because it paid, in more ways than one. I wanted my men to have a lively interest in the things which were of importance to me, that their efforts might be intelligent and direct; and I was glad to enter into their schemes, either for pleasure or for profit, with such aid as I could give. Cordial understanding between employee and employer puts life into the contract, and disposes of perfunctory service, which simply recognizes a definite deed for a definite compensation. Uninterested labor leaves a load of hay in the field to be injured, just because the hour for quitting has come, while interested labor hurries the hay into the barn to make it safe, knowing that the extra half-hour will be made up to it in some other way.

It pays the farmer to take his help into a kind of partnership, not always in his farm, but always in his consideration. That is why my farm-house was filled with papers and magazines of interest to the men; that is why I spent many an evening with them talking over our industries; that is why I purchased an organ for them when I found that Mrs. French, the dairymaid, could play on it; that is why I talked economy to them and urged them to place some part of each month's wage in the Exeter Savings Bank; and that is why, early in 1898, I formulated a plan for investing their wages at a more profitable rate of interest. I asked each one to give me a statement of his or her savings up to date. They were quite willing to do this, and I found that the aggregate for the eight men and three women was $2530. Anderson, who saved most of his wages, had an account in a city savings bank, and did not join us in our syndicate, though he approved of it.

The money was made up of sums varying from $90, Lena's savings, to $460 owned by Judson, the buggy man. My proposition was this: Pool the funds, buy Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific stock, and hold it for one or two years. The interest would be twice as much as they were getting from the bank, while the prospect of a decided advance was good. I said to them:—

"I have owned Chicago, Rock Island, and Pacific stock for more than three years. I commenced to buy at fifty-seven, and I am still buying, when I can get hold of a little money that doesn't have to go into this blessed farm. It is now eighty-one, and it will go higher. I am so sure of this that I will agree to take the stock from each or all of you at the price you pay for it at any time during the next two years. There is no risk in this proposition to you, and there may be a very handsome return."

They were pleased with the plan, and we formed a pool to buy thirty shares of stock. Thompson and I were trustees, and the certificate stood in our names; but each contributor received a pro-rata interest; Lena, one thirtieth; Judson, five-thirtieths; and the others between these extremes. The stock was bought at eighty-two. I may as well explain now how it came out, for I am not proud of my acumen at the finish. A little more than a year later the stock reached 122, and I advised the syndicate to sell. They were all pleased at the time with the handsome profit they had made, but I suspect they have often figured what they might have made "if the boss hadn't been such a chump," for we have seen the stock go above two hundred.

This was not the only enterprise in which our colony took a small share. The people at Four Oaks are now content to hold shares in one of the great trusts, which they bought several points below par, and which pay 13/4. per cent every three months. Even Lena, who held only one share of the C., R.I., & P. five years ago, has so increased her income-bearing property that she is now looked upon as a "catch" by her acquaintances. If I am correctly informed, she has an annual income of $105, independent of her wages.



CHAPTER LVII

THE DEATH OF SIR TOM

At 7.30 on the morning of March 16, Dr. High telephoned me that Sir Thomas O'Hara was seriously ill, and asked me to come at once. It took but a few minutes to have Jerry at the door, and, breasting a cold, thin rain at a sharp gallop, I was at my friend's door before the clock struck eight. Dr. High met me with a heavy face.

"Sir Tom is bad," said he, "with double pneumonia, and I am awfully afraid it will go hard with him."

I remembered that my friend's pale face had looked a shade paler than usual the evening before, and that there had been a pinched expression around the nose and mouth, as if from pain; but Sir Tom had many twinges from his old enemy, gout, which he did not care to discuss, and I took little note of his lack of fitness. He touched the brandy bottle a little oftener than usual, and left for home earlier; but his voice was as cheery as ever, and we thought only of gout. He was taken with a hard chill on his way home, which lasted for some time after he was put to bed; but he would not listen to the requests of William and the faithful cook that the doctor be summoned. At last he fell into a heavy sleep from which it was hard to rouse him, and the servants followed their own desire and called Dr. High. He came as promptly as possible, and did all that could be done for the sick man.

A hurried examination convinced me that Dr. High's opinion of the gravity of the case was correct, and we telephoned at once for a specialist from the city, and for a trained nurse. After a short consultation with Dr. High I reentered my friend's room, and I fear that my face gave me away, for Sir Tom said:—

"Be a man, Williams, and tell the whole of it."

"My dear old man, this is a tough proposition, but you must buck up and make a game fight. We have sent for Dr. Jones and a nurse, and we will pull you through, sure."

"You will try, for sure, but I reckon the call has come for me to cash in me checks. When that little devil Frost hit me right and left in me chest last night, I could see me finish; and I heard the banshee in me sleep, and that means much to a Sligo man."

"Not to this Sligo man, I hope," said I, though I knew that we were in deep waters.

The wise man and the nurse came out on the 10.30 train, the nurse bringing comfort and aid, but the physician neither. After thoroughly examining the patient, he simply confirmed our fears.

"Serious disease to overcome, and only scant vital forces; no reasonable ground for hope."

Sir Tom gave me a smile as I entered the room after parting from the specialist.

"I've discounted the verdict," said he, "and the foreman needn't draw such a long face. I've had my fling, like a true Irishman, and I'm ready to pay the bill. I won't have to come back for anything, Williams; there's nothing due me; but I must look sharp for William and the old girl in the kitchen,—faithful souls,—for they will be strangers in a strange land. Will you send for a lawyer?"

The lawyer came, and a codicil to Sir Thomas's will made the servants comfortable for life. All that day and the following night we hung around the sick bed, hoping for the favorable change that never came. On the morning of the 17th it was evident that he would not live to see the sun go down. We had kept all friends away from the sick chamber; but now, at his request, Polly, Jane, and Laura were summoned, and they came, with blanched faces and tearful eyes, to kiss the brow and hold the hands of this dear man. He smiled with contentment on the group, and said:—

"Me friends have made such a heaven of this earth that perhaps I have had me full share."

"Sir Tom," said I, "shall I send for a priest?"

"A priest! What could I do with a priest? Me forebears were on the Orange side of Boyne Water, and we have never changed color."

"Would you like to see a clergyman?"

"No, no; just the grip of a friend's hand and these angels around me. Asking pardon is not me long suit, Williams, but perhaps the time has come for me to play it. If the good God will be kind to me I will thank Him, as a gentleman should, and I will take no advantage of His kindness; but if He cannot see His way clear to do that, I will take what is coming."

"Dear Sir Tom," said Jane, with streaming eyes, "God cannot be hard with you, who have been so good to every one."

"If there's little harm in me life, there's but scant good, too; I can't find much credit. Me good angel has had an easy time of it, more's the pity; but Janie, if you love me, Le Bon Dieu will not be hard on me. He cannot be severe with a poor Irishman who never stacked the cards, pulled a race, or turned his back on a friend, and who is loved by an angel."

I asked Sir Tom what we should do for him after he had passed away.

"It would be foine to sleep in the woods just back of Janie's forge, where I could hear the click of her hammer if the days get lonely; but there's a little castle, God save the mark, out from Sligo. Me forebears are there,—the lucky ones,—and me wish is to sleep with them; but I doubt it can be."

"Indeed it can be, and it shall be, too," said Polly. "We will all go with you, Sir Tom, when June comes, and you shall sleep in your own ground with your own kin."

"I don't deserve it, Mrs. Williams, indeed I don't, but I would lie easier there. That sod has known us for a thousand years, and it's the greenest, softest, kindest sod in all the world; but little I'll mind when the breath is gone. I'll not be asking that much of you."

"My dear old chap, we won't lose sight of you until that green sod covers the stanchest heart that ever beat. Polly is right. We'll go with you to Sligo,—all of us,—Polly and Jane and Jack and I, and Kate and the babies, too, if we can get them. You shall not be lonesome."

"Lonesome, is it? I'll be in the best of company. Me heart is at rest from this moment, and I'll wait patiently until I can show you Sligo. This is a fine country, Mrs. Williams, and it has given me the truest friends in all the world, but the ground is sweet in Sligo."

His breath came fainter and faster, and we could see that it would soon cease. After resting a few minutes, Sir Tom said:—

"Me lady Laura, do you mind that prayer song, the second verse?"

Laura's voice was sobbing and uncertain as it quavered:—

"Other refuge have I none,"

but it gained courage and persuasiveness until it filled the room and the heart of the man with,—

"Cover my defenceless head, With the shadow of Thy wing."

A gentle smile and the relaxing of closed hands completed the story of our loss, though the real weight of it came days and months later.

It was long before we could take up our daily duties with anything like the familiar happiness. Something had gone out of our lives that could never be replaced, and only time could salve the wounds. The dear man who had gone was no friend to solemn faces, and living interests must bury dead memories; but it was a long time before the click of Jane's hammer was heard in her forge; not until Laura had said, "It will please him, Jane."



CHAPTER LVIII

BACTERIA

January, February, and March passed with more than the usual snow and rain,—fully ten inches of precipitation; but the spring proved neither cold nor late. During these three months we sold butter to the amount of $1283, and $747 worth of eggs; in all, $2030.

The ploughs were started in the highest land on the 11th of April, and were kept going steadily until they had turned over nearly 280 acres.

I decided to put the whole of the widow's field into corn, lots 8, 12, and 15 (84 acres) into oats, and 50 acres of the orchards into roots and sweet fodder corn. Number 13 was to be sown with buckwheat as soon as the rye was cut for green forage. I decided to raise more alfalfa, for we could feed more to advantage, and it was fast gaining favor in my establishment. It is so productive and so nutritious that I wonder it is not more generally used by farmers who make a specialty of feeding stock. It contains as much protein as most grains, and is wholesome and highly palatable if properly cured. It should be cut just as it is coming into flower, and should be cured in the windrow. The leaves are the most nutritious part of the plant, and they are apt to fall off if the cutting be deferred, or if the curing be done carelessly.

Lot No. 9 was to be fitted for alfalfa as soon as the season would permit. First, it must receive a heavy dressing of manure, to be ploughed under. The ordinary plough was to be followed in this case by a subsoiler, to stir the earth as deep as possible. When the seed was sown, the land was to receive five hundred pounds an acre of high-grade fertilizer, and one hundred pounds an acre of infected soil.

The peculiar bacterium that thrives on congenial alfalfa soil is essential to the highest development of the plant. Without its presence the grass fails in its chief function—the storing of nitrogen—and makes but poor growth. When the alfalfa bacteria are abundant, the plant flourishes and gathers nitrogen in knobs and bunches in its roots and in the joints of its stems.

I sent to a very successful alfalfa grower in Ohio for a thousand pounds of soil from one of his fields, to vaccinate my field with. This is not always necessary,—indeed, it rarely is, for alfalfa seed usually carry enough bacteria to inoculate favorable soils; but I wished to see if this infected soil would improve mine. I have not been able to discover any marked advantage from its use; the reason being that my soil was so rich in humus and added manures that the colonies of bacteria on the seeds were quite sufficient to infect the whole mass. Under less favorable conditions, artificial inoculation is of great advantage.

Wonderful are the secrets of nature. The infinitely small things seem to work for us and the infinitely large ones appear suited to our use; and yet, perhaps, this is all "seeming" and "appearing." We may ourselves be simply more advanced bacteria, working blindly toward the solution of an infinite problem in which we are concerned only as means to an end.

"Why should the spirit of mortal be proud," until it has settled its relative position with both Sirius and the micro-organisms, or has estimated its stature by view-points from the bacterial world and from the constellation of Lyra. Until we have been able to compare opinions from these extremes, if indeed they be extremes, we cannot expect to make a correct estimate of our value in the economy of the universe. I fancy that we are apt to take ourselves too seriously, and that we will sometime marvel at the shadow which we did not cast.



CHAPTER LIX

MATCH-MAKING

The home lot took on a home look in the spring of 1898. The lawn lost its appearance of newness; the trees became acquainted with each other; the shrubs were on intimate terms with their neighbors, and broke into friendly rivalry of blossoms; the gardens had a settled-down look, as if they had come to stay; and even the wall flowers were enjoying themselves. These efforts of nature to make us feel at ease were thankfully received by Polly and me, and we voted that this was more like home than anything else we had ever had; and when the fruit trees put forth their promise of an autumn harvest in great masses of blossoms, we declared that we had made no mistake in transforming ourselves from city to country folk.

"Aristocracy is of the land," said Polly. "It always has been and always will be the source of dignity and stability. I feel twice as great a lady as I did in the tall house on B—— Street."

"So you don't want to go back to that tall house, madam?"

"Indeed I don't. Why should I?"

"I don't know why you should, only I remember Lot's wife looked back toward the city."

"Don't mention that woman! She didn't know what she wanted. You won't catch me looking toward the city, except once a week for three or four hours, and then I hurry back to the farm to see what has happened in my garden while I've been away."

"But how about your friends, Polly?"

"You know as well as I that we haven't lost a friend by living out here, and that we've tied some of them closer. No, sir! No more city life for me. It may do for young people, who don't know better, but not for me. It's too restricted, and there's not enough excitement."

"Country life fits us like paper on the wall," said I, "but how about the youngsters? If we insist on keeping children, we must take them into our scheme of life."

"Of course we must, but children are an unknown quantity. They are x in the domestic problem, and we cannot tell what they stand for until the problem is worked out. I don't see why we can't find the value of x in the country as easily as in the city. They have had city and school life, now let them see country life; the x will stand for wide experience at least."

"Jane likes it thus far," said I, "and I think she will continue; but I don't feel so sure about Jack."

"You're as blind as a bat—or a man. Jane loves country life because she's young and growing; but there's a subconscious sense which tells her that she's simply fitting herself to be carried off by that handsome giant, Jim Jarvis. She doesn't know it, but it's the truth all the same, and it will come as sure as tide; and when it does come, her life will be run into other moulds than we have made, no matter how carefully."

"I wonder where this modern Hercules is most vulnerable. I'll slay him if I find him mousing around my Jane."

"You will slay nothing, Mr. Headman, and you know it; you will just take what's coming to you, as others have done since the world was young."

"Well, I give fair warning; it's 'hands off Jane,' for lo, these many years, or some one will be brewing 'harm tea' for himself."

"You bark so loud no one will believe you can bite," said this saucy, match-making mother.

"How about Jack?" said I. "Have you settled the moulds he is to be run in?"

"Not entirely; but I am not as one without hope. Jack will be through college in June, and will go abroad with us for July and August; he will be as busy as possible with the miners from the moment he comes back; he is much in love with Jessie, the Gordon's have no other child, the property is large, Homestead Farm is only three miles, and—"

"Slow up, Polly! Slow up! Your main line is all right, but your terminal facilities are bad. Jack is to be educated, travelled, employed, engaged, married, endowed with Homestead Farm, and all that; but you mustn't kill off the Gordons. I swing the red lantern in front of that train of thought. Let Jack and Jessie wait till we are through with Four Oaks and the Gordons have no further use for Homestead Farm, before thinking of coupling that property on to this."