172 FARMING IT 



pleasant predicament. Their entire household 

 goods were in the van, including such supplies 

 as were necessary for immediate use. Luckily it 

 was warm weather, and their night's lodging 

 depended upon their strength and ability to dis- 

 entangle and reconstruct their household furni- 

 ture, and night was coming on apace. 



There was but one thing to do, to march 

 them all over to my house, there to take pot-luck 

 with us. 



I was a little more confident than usual in re- 

 lation to pot-luck, for that morning I had sent 

 home a particularly fine and large roast, and 

 green corn and vegetables were abundant in my 

 garden, and milk and eggs were always at hand. 



My wife and my children, who had arrived in 

 time to see the closing rally when we "flopped," 

 as Dick expressed it, the draymen, somewhat 

 to his disgust, as he came just too late to take an 

 active part in the struggle, added their eloquence, 

 and we finally persuaded the entire family to 

 accept our hospitality, and after a hearty supper, 

 we set to work on their goods. 



How easy it is to work for other people when 

 you are doing it out of neighborly good-feeling! 

 How ingenuity is awakened that you thought you 

 never possessed ! Beds were put together that in 

 the annual spring-cleaning would have defied 

 us. Stovepipes were fitted that under ordinary 



