Part 21 (1/2)
”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 G.o.d 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 l.u.s.ty 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.