THE HIRED MAN 27 



farm is due to their personal interest, steadiness 

 of purpose, and cheerful optimism. 



William Thompson, forty-six years of age, tall, 

 lean, wiry, had been a farmer all his life. His 

 wife had died three years before, and a year 

 later, he had lost his farm through an imperfect 

 title. Understanding machinery and being a fair 

 carpenter, he then came to the city, with $200 in 

 his pocket, joined the Carpenter's Union, and 

 tried to make a living at that trade. Between 

 dull business, lock-outs, tie-ups, and strikes, he 

 was reduced to fifty cents, and owed three 

 dollars for room rent. He was in dead earnest 

 when he threw his union card on my table and 

 said : 



" I would rather work for fifty cents a day on 

 a farm than take my chances for six times as 

 much in the union." 



This was the sort of man I wanted : one who 

 had tried other things and was glad of a chance 

 to return to the land. Thompson said that after 

 he had spent one lonesome year in the city, he 

 had married a sensible woman of forty, who was 

 now out at service on account of his hard luck. 

 He also told of a husky son of two-and-twenty 

 who was at work on a farm within fifty miles 

 of the city. I liked the man from the first, for 

 he seemed direct and earnest. I told him to eat 

 up the fifty cents he had in his pocket and to 

 see me at noon of the following day. Meantime 

 I looked up one of his references ; and when he 



