Bed Letter Bays 81 



PLOUGHMEN WHO NEEDED FINGEB-BOAED AND COMPASS 



I knew a young Englishman in my homesteading 

 days out West who always put up a stake at the 

 end of his furrows. I asked him one day why he 

 did this and he said it was to assist him in finding 

 his way back to the place he started from. He 

 was ploughing with oxen and on prairie that had 

 some stones and wolf -willow roots. Looking at his 

 work I did not wonder further about his using 

 guiding stakes, because the ploughed ground 

 looked as if an insane elephant had been rooting 

 up the sod with its tusks. That ploughman 

 couldn't tell whether he was going or coming — 

 that's why he had a finger-board to show him the 

 proper point of the compass to head for. 



They used to tell a story out West about a young 

 emigrant who was from a big city and who knew 

 nothing about ploughing. They said he had a com- 

 pass fastened to the beam of his breaking plough 

 because when he started out with a furrow there 

 was grave danger of his getting lost on the prairie. 

 I don't present this as unadulterated truth but 

 I've heard it told by those breezy, free and some- 

 times careless of fact, local history-makers on the 

 plains. 



AN **ABE" LINCOLN STORY 



"Abe" Lincoln used to tell of an incident of his 

 boyhood days about ploughing with oxen. He and 



