1905.] MONEY IN LAMBS. 69 



and all he had sold off the farm that year. Footed it up, and 

 the total amount — how much do you think it was ? A little 

 less than seven hundred dollars. Why, my heart sank like 

 lead. I had given up a place that paid me a salary a great 

 deal better than that. And I thought, " What have I come 

 home to a farm for where the whole receipts are less than 

 seven hundred dollars a year? " I did not know what I should 

 do. What do you suppose the first thing I did was ? I simply 

 had to make up my mind to make the best of a bad matter and 

 see what could be done. I said I have got to go to work and 

 do all the work myself. I have got to get up at four o'clock 

 in the morning to feed and harness the horses, milk the cows, 

 and clean the stables, and do all this drudgery. Got to do it 

 all myself, because I cannot afford to keep a hand on a farm 

 that only yields a total of seven hundred dollars a year. Father 

 saw how I felt about it, and he said, " My boy, I used to make 

 more money when you were with me before, but times have 

 changed. I am getting old, and hired men are no good any 

 more." It seems to me that I have heard that several times 

 today. I have an idea, I know, they are with me, that hired 

 men are necessary. It all depends on your getting the right 

 man. But to come back ; my father said to me, " My boy, I 

 want you to go ahead and do anything you want to. You go 

 ahead and do what you are a mind to, and let me help you. 

 Let me be the boy." I could not help but think of that this 

 morning when the president of Trinity College was talking, 

 when he told about his father turning the grindstone while he 

 ground the scythe. That was about my situation. It took me 

 a long time to adjust myself to those new conditions, especially 

 after what I had been used to in the far west. I never did 

 become entirely adjusted to it, but when I heard him tell that 

 story this morning it seemed as though I just fitted into the 

 story. 



Well, I went out and looked over the farm, and began to 

 calculate what had to be done. I saw a field which I thought 

 might serve some of my purposes. It was a wet, damp, poor 

 kind of soil, a wet, sticky, miserable soil, and I looked at that 

 land, and I could not help but think of some I had seen in the 

 far west. There was no help for it, however, so I said to my 

 father, " Father, I am going to drain this plot." I got right 

 down to digging ditches, and dug ditches most all that winter. 



