64 THE FAT OF THE LAND 
I hope to keep a fair sod on these lots, and they 
will be large enough to give the animals exercise 
and keep them healthy. I hope the carpenter 
is pushing things on the house. I want to get 
you into better quarters as soon as possible, and 
I want the cottage moved out of the way before 
we seed the lot.” 
«“They’re pushing things all right, I guess; 
that man Nelson is a hustler.” 
When I reached the farm I found Johnson and 
Anderson tearing down the old fence that was 
our eastern boundary. None of the posts were 
long enough for my purpose, so all were con- 
signed to the woodpile. 
My neighbor on the north owned just as much 
land as I did. He inherited it and a moderate 
bank account from his father, who in turn had 
it from his. The farm was well kept and pro- 
ductive. The house and barns were substantial 
and in good repair. The owner did general 
farming, raised wheat, corn, and oats to sell, 
milked twenty cows and sent the milk to the 
creamery, sold one or two cows and a dozen 
calves each year, and fattened twenty or thirty 
pigs. He was pretty certain to add a few hun- 
dred dollars to his bank account at the end of 
each season. He kept one man all the time and 
two in summer. He was a bachelor of twenty- 
eight, well liked and good to look upon: five feet 
ten inches in height, broad of shoulder, deep of 
chest, and a very Hercules in strength. His face 
