EARLY MANHOOD IN THE MIDDLE WEST 139 



and laid the price of it on the counter. I learned 

 afterwards that this man was a livestock buyer who 

 on occasion made the air blue with profanity when 

 the cattle and hogs which were being driven to the 

 cars were not of his way of thinking. 



As soon as possible the rent house which Pat- 

 rick had lived in at the other side of the farm 

 was moved, by means of two long skids and eight 

 span of oxen and horses, and placed over the 

 ashes of the one which had been burned. Now it 

 is no easy life to remodel an old house and put a 

 half story on top of it while living in it and at the 

 same time to work as I did, most of the time, ten 

 hours per day on the farm. That summer I 

 worked fully fourteen hours per day and occasion- 

 ally sixteen hours when I put on lath by candle 

 light. 



You may wonder what we ate and drank I 

 say we, for the wife worked as hard as I did that 

 we were able to endure such toil. Well, we did not 

 breakfast on cornflakes or wheat germs nor drink 

 Java or Mocha, for it would have taken, at one 

 time, five bushels of corn to buy one pound of 

 coffee. The beverage we drank was made of 

 roasted sorghum; that is, scorched home-made 

 molasses which had enough of a bitter taste to 



