The Watertown weekly leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1912-1917, 1916-05-30
CHAPT Err w.
Humbled by a Drag Scraper.

Humbled by Drag Scraper.
One Of the advantages of being
bachelor when you are building or
restoring house Is that you can spend
most of your time in the garden |
am by nature a trusting soul, anyway
(Which no woman and possibly no wise
man ever is where carpenters, builders
and plumbers are concerned), and /
trusted Hard Cider implicitly. He told
me the plumbers were "doin' all right"
and | believed him. That he himself
was doing all right my own eyes told
me, for he had by now reached the
south rooms. removed the dividing par
tftiOn, revealing the old. hand-hewn
oak beam at the top. and was cutting
double door out in the center on Ell
ther side of the great oak upright
toward my future sundial lawn.
stood in this new door. looking back
at my twin fireplaces, with their plain
paneled old mantels.
"Mr. Howard" said |. chose man.
tells are about as plain as you could
make EN-. and yet they are very hand
some somehow. dingy as they are"
ITS the lines said Hard Cider.
"Jest the right lines. Lower 'em six
inches, and wizard they be?"
Gould you build me a bookcase,
against the wall. just like them, from
one to the other. and bring it out at
right angles five feet into the room
from the center. making it the back of
a double settle?' | asked.
I'm carpenter" Hard replied la
conicaily.
took his pencil and sketched what
/ wanted on a clean board.
EYER got too much curve on the
base and arms o them Settles" he said
judicially
He took the pencil away from me,
and made quick, neat, accurate
sketch of just what instantly saw l
did want
shrugged my shoulders. $50
aheadr' said |. "What did you ask
me to draw it for in the first place"
"Folks likes to think they hev their
own idees," he answered.
l turned away, through the new
south door, into the May sunshine. The
pergola was not commenced. In fact,
I had decided not to build it till the
following spring. Those beastly paint
ers whom | had forgotten were going
to eat up too much of my slender CAPT
tai. Before me stretched the go feet
of plowed slope which was to be my
sundial lawn. At the end of it was
my line of stakes. where the ramblers
T. = r.,
vegetable garden. newly narrowed and
fortified. where Mike and Joe were
busily working. the one planting peas,
the other setting out a row of beets.
The horse was not in evidence. | could
have him at last, to make my lawni
/ ran around the house to the stable.
put on the harness, hitched him to my
new drag scraper, and drove him to
the slope.
The ground here sloped down east
ward toward the brook, and if was
TO have a level lawn south of my house,
/ should have to remove at least two
feet of soil from the western end and
deposit it on the eastern end. l wisely
decided to start close to the house.
Hauling at the handles of the heavy
scraper and yelling Back up, therev'
at the horse, l got the steel scoop into
the ground at the line of my proposed
grape arbor. tipped down the blade,
and cried. "Giddupw l hung to the
reins as best | could, twisting them
about my wrist, and the horse started
obediently forward. The scoop did
its work very nicely. In fact, it was
quite full after we had gone six feet,
and / had only TO let the horse drag
it the remaining "a feet of the proposed
width of the lawn. and empty it. AS
the scraper covered a furrow but two
feet wide, that meant 125 burrows to
scrape my entire lawn as planned, and
at least twenty trips to the furrow.
did some rapid multiplication, dropped
the reins and moved toward my stakes.
/ saw that Joe and Mike were looking
at me.
81 think" said [. with some dignity,
as l began TO pull the stakes up, that
this lawn will look better square. As
it's a hundred feet broad, a hundred
feet will be far enough to extend it
from the house.
sure" said Mike, the big road
scraper II be over here tomorrow.
scrapin' the road, and it do be easier
an quicker to borry that
In some ways, | consider this re-
mark of Mixes. under the eircum-
stances, one of the most gentlemanly
/ ever heardi And l jumped at his
suggestion.
"Mike," said l, ''I'll admit this job is
bigger than l thought. How can l
borrow the road scraper|
'.Sure, amt me frind Dan Morris
sew one o. the selictmen?" said Mike.
"and amt he the road boss, and amt
he willin IT, earn an extra penny for
for the town?"