TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 615 



clay when collectivism was hardly felt in the life of the nation, and in 

 those days I farmed — a three-acre farm first, and then forty acres, and 

 then 120. I think I worried more about the hay off of that three-acre 

 place than what we got off of the big place. . I watched the clouds and 

 worried whether I would get it all in or not, and if it wasn't gotten in 

 in time we had to put it out again to dry. How did we get it mowed? 

 Old Lon Diggs, very bent, very crooked, very black, with a very broad- 

 brimmed hat, with ragged clothes, and in the rents of his shirt I could 

 see the marks of the slave driver's lash, and to me, a boy raised in the 

 civil war period, that man's back with the marks on it symbolized to me 

 the cause for which we fought in the civil war. So old Londonderry 

 Diggs would come with his scythe, with an edge as sharp as a razor, and 

 he would never take his feet off the ground as he swung his scythe 

 through the hay, and the stubble would be as smooth as thought cut by 

 a lawn mower. After the hay was cut we had to get it into the mow. 

 1 would gather it into haycocks, watching the clouds for showers, and 

 then we had to get some one to haul it in. Who would we have? Why, 

 old Father Marr. He was the drayman for the town, and he had two 

 horses, both blind in both eyes, he himself blind in one eye — and only 

 one eye for the whole outfit. (Laughter.) The place was full of trees 

 and stumps, and he would come and load up his rack, and would hook 

 over a tree or stump every twenty feet or so. (Laughter.) Those were 

 the great old days! 



And then in November father would say, "Jim, let's get things in for 

 the winter." The suggestion of winter coming stirred us to activity to 

 get our cabbages and celery and fruit into the cellar — that great cellar 

 with double-decked bins on either side filled to overflowing. How dif- 

 ferent from this day of the refrigerator, which is usually almost, if not 

 quite, empty. Oh, the odor of that cellar! How wonderful it was! I 

 tell you, we felt then, as a boy, just like I imagine a squirrel must feel 

 when he has his nest all full of nuts, and he is ready for cold winter's 

 ice and snow to come. Everything was in! Great days! The days of 

 individualism! Wonderful old fellows that used to come up to see us 

 in those days! Old Uncle Guy, who had lived sixty-eight years on that 

 same farm in Van Buren county; he would drive a team of shaggy-footed 

 colts, and we boys, seeing him coming, would cry, "Here comes Uncle 

 Guy!" and then rush down the yard, climb over the gate, and greet him 

 as only children can. We would come with him up to the yard, get the 

 horses out, bring him to the house, and proceed to pile all over him. 

 That dear old man was as elemental as the soil in which he worked, as 

 the sky over his head, as the animals that he raised about that great 

 old barn. Wonderful stories he could relate that I might tell to you! 

 Then there was one very, very different. He was a wonderful man, was 

 Uncle John. Uncle John, when he wanted meat in those early days, 

 how did he get it? When he got religion he decided he wouldn't hunt 

 any more on Sundays, .so he sat down in front of his kitchen window on 

 Sunday morning and prayed for meat, and lo, here came a deer out of 

 the thicket, and Uncle John says, "Hey, you come around tomorrow and 

 I'll attend to your case!" One time at a protracted meeting he told 

 me how he got meat. With us at the meeting were John Landis and 



