News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1916-05-24


n a day for him and give him his dinner
If 1t Isn't any harder work than 1 an
, going to do"
o "Yasser, Mr.. Joe, rents i'm ter you
Il LINK, you do whit he tells you, en- e
6 you don do hit l gwine ter take d.
h hide often you. Does you heah me
= boy"
o "Yasser, I heahs you" Abe Lin
: coins glance at his parent was sac
and reproachful. Abe was fat ant
q lazy and hated to work.
7 "All right" said Joe. Uncle Jeff
, go get your ak and start in on that
locust thicket. You know where it is
Want the posts eight feet long"
, Uncle jeff ambled down the road to-
. ward his cabin. Link, big, over
grown boy two years older than Joe
stood awkwardly waiting for orders.
Come on. Link" said Joe, walking
into the grove of oak trees, leaving his
father in the road eying him curious
~. Mr.. Weston was dying to know
what Joe was going to do next. but
would not ask
In the oak grove the dry leaves lay
more than shoetop deep. Joe took his
knife, cut a good sized bundle Of young
sprouts and tied them together, max
ing stiff broom. With this he began
to sweep leaves. and it worked adj
mirably.
Link, you take this broom and
sweep these leaves in piles. Make one
about every thirty feet. I'll be back
shortly"
Leaving Link at work. Joe hustled
past his father and soon returned from
| the barn with four large oat sacks.
Link had several good sized piles of
| leaves ready. Joe held two sacks and
made Link cram them full of the dry
leaves. and, instructing him to fill the
other two. Joe swung the full sacks
upon his shoulders, marched across the
road and emptied them on his four
acres; then back and securing the two
Link had filed, he emptied them, the
others meanwhile in turn having been
loaded.
Mr.. Weston grinncd derisively. Joe
was really too busy to notice him. I'm.
til noon the boys worked like beavers,
and by that time a third of an acre
had been covered with leaves ovet
shoetop deep Bright and early next
morning they resumed work after hav.
ing put in a steady afternoon, and by
the time dinner was ready one acre
had been covered. Another day GOV.
cred another acre and cleaned up
about all the leaves in the grove.
That night Mr.. Weston undertook to
have some fun at Joe's expense.
"Goin' to tote leaves from that next
grover he inquired. The next grove
was nearly mile away.
mo, too far-won't pay" This com.
mon sense view stumped him for |
awhile.
Daddy, I'll give you 10 cents load |
for what fertilizer there is in the barn. |
yard"
"Ain't none there-not over load or
so. You can have it for that price If
you get it up Mr. Weston had never |
thought of it as having any value at /
all and never collected it or used 1t on
crops.
Next morning Joe and Link, each
with hoe, began scraping the COW lot
and barn floor, going down after the
thick layer of well rotted humus form.
ing material that had accumulated for
several years and which Mr.. Weston
had placed no value on whatever.
Eleven two horse wagon loads were Sc
cured. Joe borrowed his fathers wag-
on and scattered the entire lot on the
That's my corn acre, Link" he ex-
planned. I'm going to try to grow
some corn here like it ought to be.
What's the most corn you and Uncle
JEFF ever made to the acre?"
81 dunno 'Zac'ly, but hit wuz in de
neighborhood of fifteen bushels"
Joe bought eight more loads of barn
yard fertilizer from a neighbOr at 20
cents a load, delivered, and put that on
his cotton acre.
Then he made an arrangement with
another neighbor who had a plow suit
able for deep breaking and stipulated
that four mules were to be attached
to it.
'What'n the name of peace you want
that fer? Yer goin' ter tear the bottom
plumb outer this field. Coin ter plow
plumb down ter Chiny?' inquired the
farmer.
'Yes, I'm going to tear the bottom
out. / want that land broke fourteen
inches deep. cross broke and then har.
rowed."
"All right: you're the doctor on that.
I'll charge you S."
That's a trade; hitch up. 1 want to
get it broken as soon as possible"
The plowman was greatly astonished
at the amount of leaves on the two
acres and the amount of fertilizer
spread. Then he sank the heavy plow
to the shank on the cutter edge of the
lot; the four mules strain
ed, and a great heavy ribbon of dirt