Spring, the Strenuous Season 



PRING began with us when the ground, even though still hard, could 

 be turned over. "Mack," so dubbed to prevent confusion with 

 John Coddington, forked the lawn plots about the house — the plow 

 had not done any work here, for the trees interfered. It was hard 

 work and slow, but brawny muscle and encouragement prevailed. 

 A dressing of well-rotted manure and a sowing of ashes had been 

 spread for turning under, for we wished to lay special stress upon 

 the grass plot. Too many new homes never have one, more's the 

 pity.v Of course, it needed raking after being turned over, and as 

 no rakes seemed to grow in scrub oak, the Englishman turned 

 Yankee and invented one. He took a board, drove nails through 

 it, fastened it to a stick, and proceeded to rake; Teddy, for a drag 

 and leveler, tied a couple of cedars to a board, which answered the 

 purpose admirably. 



Edward Tuddenham, or Ted, started work March 1st, giving 

 us 2 men. Much work on buildings was yet to be done, while 2 

 more portables of 3 and 5 rooms each were ordered ; one was for the 

 helpers, the other for our own use. This necessitated moving the 

 seaside cottage already erected on the house plot farther west — an 

 added.expense, but one that under the circumstances was unavoid- 

 able. 



The tower was still incomplete and the bam unerected. 

 March 19th brought with it a corps of 4 carpenters. I quote 

 from the Senior Partner's diary to show that things did not go 

 merrily all the time: 



"The 4 carpenters arrived with little to eat, nothing to cook 

 with and nowhere to sleep. I took out of the chicken house car 

 materials stored there waiting the arrival of the portable houses, 

 set 2 men to work erecting bunks and tables, while the third re- 

 turned to the city for food supplies." 



It was necessary to keep the workmen there, for distances 

 were so great the best portion of a day was used in traveling back 

 and forth. 



Our next few days were spent in getting out orders for vegetable plants (knowing full well we could 

 not raise all we should need), and various other "knittmg work." Receiving word that the csrpenter 

 who erected the first portable would be there to erect the others (which, by the way, had arrived), we 

 returned to the farm. The first thing that greeted us was the barn frame, standing about 4 feet above 

 the car top and big enough for an apartment house. 



"For heaven's sake," exclaimed the Master Mind, "do you think we are going to keep giraffes? 

 That thing is big enough for giants. Where's the plan? ^We drew it and sent it in with this roof slanting 

 south from the car roof!" 



The drawing was produced, a beautiful blue and white thing by expert draftsmen, but the speci- 

 fications attached did not "gibe." 



To say we "threw fits" draws it mildly. Three men had worked 3 days with second hand extra 

 heavy timber (this is where the Pennsy was saving a few millions) and this awful nightmare stared us in 

 the face. 



"It hoodoos the whole place," I exclaimed. "We might just as well not have worked so hard. 

 Telephone (oh, yes, we had a telephone, every farmer should, especially if he is far from civilization and 

 the base of supplies) to the Engineer's Department 'and ask them if it can't be altered." 



A heart to heart talk with the foreman revealed the fact that his instructions were to "Do whatever 

 Mr. Fullerton wants. If he says to put the roof on the ground and the floor on top, you do it." 

 That was sufficient for us, the roof came down in the world and later took its proper place. 

 But March was slipping away and there were no horses, and plowing must start soon! Would that 

 barn ewer be built? 



The Thanksgiving cottage must be moved; for so the first one erected was named, from the fact 

 that we took the 2 children and dinner under our arms and spent the day at the farm. Dinner consisted 

 of cold broiled chicken — the real kind that you raise yourself, not the dormant kind of city life — fried sweet 

 potatoes, which I warmed in the little oven (this was before Mack's family had moved in) and pumpkin 

 pie. To quote again from the diary: 



"The entire Fullerton family having decided that the small village plot was not sufficient in extent 

 to allow their true Thanksgiving proper expansion, arranged to take their dinner in a basket and eat 

 what was the first Thanksgiving dinner ever eaten, by a white man at least, on Peace and Plenty Farm 

 (this is our own pet name for the place). The little portable was warm and the drawing table supple- 

 mented by an extremely low rocker, one extremely high rush-bottomed chair, several dynamite boxes 

 and the mattress of a cot bed, made this dinner unique in a great diversity of respects. 



25 



