Evening star., 1898-07-30
MONEY IN BAYONETS

Il wish could pick up the bayonets that
have been thrown away around Santiago" Z"
said blacksmith in one of Washington's s
down town shops yesterday.
What earthly good would they do your
asked a bystander
L could make small fortune out of
them," replied the blacksmith, '.just as
did once before with the bayonets that
were picked up at Antietam ard Harper's
Ferry"
"How's thate"
We'll. don't know as it cid me any
good-leastways 1t doesn't now that have
lost 1t all. Perhaps that IS the reason that
/ thiEk would like to try 1t again. 1 was
young man when the war was over and
was living up at a little out-of-the-way
place in the mountains of Maryland. had
learned my trade of my father, who fell
at Gettysburg, 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 little capital.
One day an old fellow living way up on
,ne tne mouh tain came into my shop with
bayonet In his hand. On the other arm was
little besket of nice white eggs
cap, he said, as he laid the bayonet
on the anvil, my unyin patch is all gormed
up with weeds and filth, an eff yo' could
en- Jest make me leetle narrer hoe outen
this baynet fer this yere mess O. eggs, l
reckon ia hev a right good chance of
unyins.'"
L took the bayonet and hit it tap
against the anvil and 1t rang like a bell
There was the best of steel in it and 1
knew l could make a first-class hoe out of
it, L had seen any number of bayonets,
army muskets and swords kicking around
In fhCf l,.k
of using them for anything before 1 stuck
the bayonet into the fire and in a few
minutes | made very pretty little onion
noe for the old man. 1 cut off about two
thirds of the steel, then bent the rest around
nearly square with the ferrule and fattened
1t out into nice sharp blade an inch wide
The ferrue left untouched so that the hoe
handle could be put into it. There hap
pened to be an old handle standing in the
corner of the shop, and l put it in for the
old man. 1t hung just right and made the
prettfest garden weapon you ever saw. The
old fellow was delighted. A few days later
he came In again and told me how the hoe
worked. He said 1t was so light; SO thin
and so sharp and strong that it was play
to hoe onions, something that had always
heard before this was the hardest kind of
work"
What he said set me to thinking. If
hayonet made such good onion hoe why
was there not field for making them on
a large scale? The bayonets were to be
had i'll quantity and there were people
enough raising onions. In a few days a
nefghbOr of the old man came into the shop
with bayonet and said he wanted a hoe
made out of it. Several others followed his
example in the next month or so and bay
onet hoes came to be known and generally
used in that region. 1 put up a notice in
several post Offices around there that 1
would pay five cents apiece for bayonetS.
they came in by hundreds. In spare time
l made them up into hoes, which l finished
off nicely as / knew how. Then l put
little vertisement in the county paper
and finally another in agricultural
paper, and the orders began to pour in on
me. 1 charged thirty-five cents apiece for
the hoes and as it did not take over five
minutes to make one, when l was making
was at least twenty-five cents profit on
each hoe. l had no discount to make to
the trade. l sold every hoe myself and
got all the profit myself. The trade in
creased until bayonets began to get scarce
and / had to offer seven, eight and finally
ten cents for bayonets and they were slow
to come in at that figure. But for a year
or two / sold the hoes by hundreds and /
got very well fixed financially. In my ad-
vertsement of course 1 alluded to the bibli-
cal notion of beating swords into plow-
shares and shears into pruning hooks. This
was very fetching with all sorts of good
people, and good many, l suppose, bought
my hoes not only because they were
first-class article, 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 battleffelds of the south. 1t Is good
to think that the use 1 put them to was
more peaceful and useful to mankind.