The San Francisco call., 1898-12-25
MONEY IN BAYoNETS.
How Blacksmith Turned Them Into
 Onion Hoes

q wish I could pick up the bayonets that have been thrown away around san tiago," said a blacksmith in one Of Wash ington's downtown shops yesterday. ,,
 What earthly good would they dc you?" asked a bystander.
 Il could make a small fortune out o1 them.' replied the blacksmith, just as I did once before with the bayonets that were picked up at Antietam and liar per's Ferry"
 "How's that?"
 "Wen, I don't know as it did me any good-leastways it doesn't now that have lost it all. Perhaps that is the req son that I think l would like to try il war was over, and was living. up at a little out-of-the-way place in the noun tains of Maryland. 1 had learned my burg, and the world was before me. settled down to shoeing farm horses and mules, repairing reapers and mowers, and doing odd jobs of all kinds Prices were better then than they are now, and the country had some cash in it. l did well and laid by a little capital.
 ''One day an old fellow living way up on the mountain came into my shop With bayonet in his hand. On the other arm was little basket of nice white eggs.
 Cap he said, as he laid the bayonet on the anvil my unyin patch IS all you could on'y jest make me a leetle mar Ter hoe outen this bayonet fer this we're mess O eggs, I reckon I'd hev d right good chance or unylnS.
 ''I took the bayonet and hit it a tap against the anvil, and it rang like bell. There was the best of steel in 1t, and l knew I could make a first class hoe out of 1t. I had seen any number of bayo- nets, army muskets and swords kicking around in that country, but 1 had never thought of using them for anything be- fore. l stuck the bayonet into the fire, and in a few minutes l made very pretty little onion hoe for the old man. 1 cut off about two-thirds of the steel, then bent the rest around nearly square with the ferrule and flattened it out into a nice sharp blade an inch wide. The fer rule l left untouched, so that the hoe handle could be put into 1t. There hap pened to be an old handle standing in the corner of the shop and I put 1t in for the old man. It hung just right, and made the prettiest garden weapon you ever saw. The old fellow was delighted few days later he came in again and told me how the hoe worked. He said it was so light, so thin and so sharp and strong that it was play to hoe onions, something that l had always heard before this was the hardest kind of work.
 What he said set me to thinking. If a bayonet made such a good onion hoe why was there not field for making them on a large scale? The bayonets were people enough raising onions. In few days a neighbor of the old man came into the shop with a bayonet and said he wanted a hoe made out of it Sey-
 
 next month or so and bayonet hoes came to be known and generally used in that region. l put up notice in several post offices around there that l would pay ] cents apiece for bayonets. They came in by hundreds. In spare time 1 made them up into hoes. which I finished off as nicely as 1 knew how. Then I put little ad- vertisement in the county paper, and finally another in an agricultural paper and the orders began to pour in on me. I charged B cents apiece for the hoes, and as it did not take over five minutes to make one, when I was making them in quantity, I estimated that there was at least 9 cents profit on each hoe. I had no discount to make to the trade. I sold every hoe myself. and got all the profit myself. The trade increased until bayO- nets began to get scarce. and 1 had to offer ', and finally 10 cents for bayonets and they were slow to come in at that figure. But for a year or two I sold the hoes by hundreds. and I got very well fixed financially. In my advertisement ot course. I alluded to the biblical notion Of beating swords into ploughshares, and shears into pruning hooks. This was very fetching with all sorts of good people, and a good many I suppose bought my hoes not only because they were first-class articles, but as relics of the war. Some of those bayonets had no doubt pierced some poor fellows Vitals, and let his life blood out upon the greensward on the battlef1elds of the South. It is good tc think that the use I put them to was more peaceful and useful to mankind. '- Washington Star