138 HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 



of day's labor in Nebraska; but the marvel 

 swapped ends when we had tried out a dozen or 

 so of these dollar-a-day men. In our six years 

 we've had only two out of dozens who have 

 earned their dollar fairly, measured by any 

 standard of fairness you'd like to apply. 



One foggy autumn morning, when the farm 

 was shrouded in white, Laura sent one of these 

 chaps across the farm to the pasture, to drive 

 up the cows for milking. He was gone for 

 more than an hour. I was strong for waiting, 

 just for the fun of seeing how long it would 

 take him to get back; but that grew tedious 

 after a while. When he was located, by and 

 by, he was burrowed snugly back into a big 

 shock of corn fodder, sitting on the ground 

 and calmly chewing his snuff-stick. 



"I reckoned as how I'd be savin' time fer 

 me an' the cow-critters, too," he argued, "if 

 I'd wait till the fog riz." 



Maybe the logic of that was good enough; 

 but we couldn't quite get used to haying our 

 "hands" always sitting down at the farm work. 

 If one would be set to picking stone, he'd head 

 straightway for some sheltering hollow in the 

 field where he might sit down out of sight; if 

 we set him to clearing, he'd burrow forthwith 



