206 FARMING IT 



farming utensils, such as spades, shovels, hoes, 

 a lawn-mower with a hood, forks, a lawn-roller, 

 a scythe, bush-hook and snaths, double-handed 

 saw, hammer, axes, hatchets, and a pigeon-holed 

 box of assorted nails, and last and most impor- 

 tant of all, a fine, new, five-dollar-and-fifty-cent 

 wheelbarrow. 



To a neighborhood the members of which had 

 for the most part inherited their tools from long- 

 deceased ancestors, an opportunity to borrow 

 new and modern farm implements is a rare op- 

 portunity, indeed, and the ice-bound fetters of 

 reserve began to warm up a little and thaw to 

 quite an appreciable extent. 



In such a neighborhood a bright, new, sharp 

 hoe is a mighty power to make and keep a friend- 

 ship ; a loanable lawn-mower will impose more 

 respect than the possession of money ; a box of 

 assorted nails will do much to atone for the er- 

 rors of a misspent life; a roller for lawns and 

 gravel-walks wields an immense influence for 

 trust and affection. 



But it is a wheelbarrow that inspires love and 

 good-fellowship. It is a wheelbarrow that levels 

 all ranks, buries all hatchets, destroys all enmi- 

 ties, absolves one from all sins of commission and 

 omission past, present and future, makes one a 

 man and a brother, a comrade, a friend, and 

 a trusted neighbor. 



