530 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



chopped their own wood and burnt it upon their own hearth- 

 stones, and made their own soap. Soap may be an evidence of 

 civilization, it is not a certain one, but the grindstone test never 

 failed. Neither did it ever fail in the proof of a good farmer. 

 If his grindstone is all right, so is everything else. If it is an 

 old shackling affair, hung with a loose wooden shaft, and rotten 

 crank, with a limb of an apple tree for a handle, upon a frame 

 propped up, one corner on a dilapidated stone wall, without a 

 trough to hold water, and with a wo-begone squeak and a groan 

 when it is put upon duty, you need not look any further after 

 that man's character. He will grind it out for you, if you will 

 turn, upon that miserable excuse for a grindstone. Do you 

 happen to know a fellow who is notoriously a poor, miserable, 

 slack, go-day-come-day, slow-and-easy sort of a nobody, you may 

 set it down as gospel truth that he don't own a grindstone — not 

 even that miserable excuse for one mounted upon the dilapidated 

 frame that leans against the old stone wall; no, not even one 

 that runs upon notches cut in two fence-rails leaned against the 

 back side of the house, or rested across the corner of the pig-pen, 

 the fac-simile of which you can find in a thousand hills and vales 

 throughout this land of civilization, fourth of July patriotism 

 and grindstones. Talk about your mowing and reaping machines, 

 your sharp scythes, and keen axes ! Not one of them could be 

 made or kept in order without the grindstone. Tell the farmer 

 about the advantage of sharp spades and hoes, but how is he to 

 keep them sharp without this most indispensable of all imple- 

 ments of husbandry, the grindstone'? Talk about the discomforts 

 of a smoky house and a scolding wife ! That is not the real cause 

 of the scolding, it is a dull axe. You don't pitch into that hard- 

 seasoned old log that contains some of the best fuel in the world, 

 but go to work like an uncivilized Potawatamie, and knock up 

 some old rotten wood with your dull axe ; and that, instead of 

 making a fire makes a smoke, which sours the good wife's temper, 

 which finally, if the wood does not, bursts into a flame when she 

 attempts, with a dull knife, to cut meat for the breakfast of a 

 poor, shiftless, good-for-nothing fellow, who is trying to live in 

 the world without a grindstone. Think of it, living without a 



