422 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
March 17, 1917 
“Balked” ” 
I AIN’T uo writer. I can plow a fur- 
rer as straight as the next man, and 
they ain’t many as I’d ast their ad¬ 
vice about fittin’ a seed bed, or fillin’ 
a silo, or growin’ the corn to fill it. After 
I git it w'rit, as likely as not they won’t 
no editor print it; but well, w'e got pork 
and pertaters and cabbage enough in the 
cellar to last the Winter out—to say 
nothin’ about Mail’s big sh^f full and 
runnin’ over o’ canned stuff. We ain’t 
more’n half emptied one silo yit, the 
barn’s so full o’ hay they ain’t room to 
hitch on the floor, and my last milk check 
w^as $104.19, so they ain’t much danger of 
us starvin’ to death, whether this gits 
printed or not. On the other hand, if it 
don’t, the editors ain’t likely to lose their 
jobs, and the world’ll prob’ly keep right 
turnin’ on its own axle oncet in twenty- 
*four hours, accordin’ to the present 
ekeejool. 
We was owin’ a matter of $250 on the 
morgidge; and Mary, bein’ a woman, 
that two hundred and fifty bothered her a 
hull lot more’n the o-rig’nal five thousan’ 
did. It didn’t' bother me none. I was 
carryin’ that much in the bank; and be¬ 
sides, I had more’n enough young stock 
that I could sell any time and wipe it 
out; but I figgered I could make a hull 
lot more’n that six per cent, keepin’ them 
heifers out to paster till late Fall, and 
sellin’ the poorest on ’em off as they 
come into milkin’ the follerin’ Winter 
and Spring. I couldn’t make her see it, 
and she begun to think up schemes for 
makin’ money so’s she could say she’d 
cleaned up that morgidge. I dunno what 
she didn’t take into cal’lation—they was 
hens, and bees, and ginseng, and home- 
canned stuff, and I dunno what-all; but 
finely, she settled on Summer boarders. 
I didn’t take to the idee at all—they 
ain’t nothin’ more sorrerful ’n a farm 
house full o’ city-folks durin’ a long rainy 
spell; but I give up opposin’ wimmen- 
folks a good while ago, so I let her have 
her w’ay. Ileni-y and Edith was both 
aw-ay f’um home at the time, so I let my 
boy Jimmy write the ad-vertise-ment, and 
I sent it to one o’ the city papers. I 
saved the paper—it w’cnt like this: 
“Wanted—Small family to board for 
Summer. Good eatin’ and drinkin’. My 
wife’s a first-class cook. No canned stuff. 
No dogs—our Tige don’t like strange 
dogs and he’s the best fighter round here. 
All the milk and eggs yon can eat same 
day they’re laid. 
Mrs. Ezry Barlow, 
R. F. D. No. 1, 
Phalenville.” 
Of course, Edith lit into the ad-vertise- 
ment as soon as she got back. She said 
she’d never be able to go now'heres. after 
that thing; but I bet it was copied in 
forty papers—we got two or three 
marked copies a day for some little time, 
and I call that pretty cheap ad-vertisin’. 
We didn’t git no letters f’um nobody, 
though, and Edie said no wonder—who’d 
want to board at .Tayville? 
About a week after we’d give it up, 
here comes a letter f’um New York City. 
A gentleman and lady named Showalter 
said they hadn’t no children nor dogs, and 
they wanted a quiet home; they was will¬ 
in’ to pay not over $15 a week for the 
two. As Mary had bin cal’latin’ on $5 a 
week apiece, she jumped at it. 
I went down to the Junction to bring 
’em up, the day they come. S/ie was a 
nice, takin’ body; but I didn’t cotton to 
him wuth a cent. I couldn’t tell jist what 
ailed him—he wa’n’t over-dressed, no 
more’n her; nor he wa’n’t uppish nor 
nothin’. In fact, I never see a more fair- 
spoken feller. But by the time, we got 
home I ’lowed to myself that he wa’n’t 
all-wool, nor a yard wide, neither—by a 
long shot. 
We all hitched better’n I expected. By 
the time me’n Henry was through milkin’ 
in the mornin’, they’d be up and out on 
the front porch—her admirin’ the scen¬ 
ery, and him smokin’ a cigar. I hope I 
never smoke, but if I do I bet you wun’t 
ketch me at it before breakfast. I ain’t 
in the suicide bizness. I didn’t see as he 
had any perticklar use for the scenery 
and that didn’t raise him none in my es¬ 
timation, because I didn’t name our place 
Farview Farm for nothin’. You can see 
this ain’t no ad-vertise-ment. IVe're out 
o’ the Summer boarder bizness! What I 
.started to say was, they et right along 
with us, and the vittles suited ’em. She 
told Mary more’n once that her cookin’ 
was the best she ever et. He never said 
nothin’, and he didn’t need to. ^ I was 
to eat sich meals and lay around the way 
he did the first month, the undertaker ’ud 
soon be measurin’ me for a wooden suit. 
Edith and her took to one another like 
two cats in a rain-barrel. They went 
out to see all the diff’rent places together 
—Whitaker’s Falls and sich, and the way 
them two girls used to talk when they 
come back was jist like a book. 
The fust time he woke up and wanted 
to go anywhere was the day of our 
Grange picnic. Henry and Edie and 
Mrs. Showalter went with old Nell and 
the buggy. Me and Mary was in the 
spring-wagon, waitin’ for Jimmy to shut 
up old Tige because we didn’t want him 
to foller us, when Showalter walks up 
and gits in. 
“Guess I’ll take it in,’’ he sez. 
Mai’y had bis dinner all laid out in the 
dinin’-i’oom fur him, but .she didn’t hold 
it again him. She told him she was glad 
he was cornin’; and she hoped he’d have a 
good time. 
He never spoke a word till we got 
there; then he told me he’d haf to de¬ 
pend on me to interduce him to the men 
folks. I interduced hitn to two and then 
he took the lines hisself. I never see 
sich a difference in a feller! He empired 
the ball game, pitched quates joshed ev’ry- 
body—includin’ the preacher, and made 
the best speech of anybody after dinner. 
He was chuck full to the eaves o’ jokes 
and funny stories, and after he got 
through he had every man there a cheer¬ 
in’ him—except Jim Bunce—and a good 
many of the wimmen. 
A Promoter 
RECORDED BY 
After the speechifyin’, Jim got me off 
to one side. Jim’s my brother-in-law; 
and me and him don’t ast no odds o’ 
David and Jonathan. 
“Ezry,” sez he, “what kind of a jigger 
is this you’re a springin’ on us?” 
“Spring nothin’!” I sez. “He’s one o‘ 
Mary’s boarders.” 
“What’s he got to sell?” he wants to 
know. 
“Nothin’ that I know of,” I told him. 
“This is the fust time I’ve seen him 
waked up since he’s bin with us—about a 
month. All he’s done up to to-day is eat, 
drink, smoke, sleep and breathe.” 
“Um-m,” Jim sez; “I’m almost sOrry 
me’n you ain’t bettin’ men.” 
“Why?” I ast him. 
“Because,” he sez, “I’d like to put my 
bay colt ag’in that chestnut geldin’ o’ 
your’n on a bet that he ain’t up here for 
his health. Furthermore, Ezry, if he 
tries to sell you anything—f’um a gold 
brick to a fust morgidge on the Flatiron 
Buildin’; don’t bite; because all yo.u’11 git 
out of it ’ll be the gaff—mind what I tell 
.vou.” 
Of course I couldn’t git hot at Jim. 
But I must say Showalter ’d improved 
upon acquaintance. I don’t like to mis¬ 
judge no man, and I hadn’t seen nothin’ 
that you could call out o’ the way. I 
got some notions as I try to live up to, 
but I ain’t settin’ up no standards for 
other people to live by. 
Mebbe ’twas a week—mebbe a little 
more—after the picnic, when J. Augustus 
Showalter wakes up agin and takes a in¬ 
terest in the community. He hired old 
Nell and the buggy and begun to drive 
out his wife. I was right in the midst 
o’ hayin’—it was late that year, and I 
didn’t keep no track of his doin’s. 
Dunno*s I should have, anyway. I ain’t 
much of a hand to meddle with other 
folks’s bizness. 
Then one mornin’ I told Henry to take 
the team and start in mowin’ right after 
breakfast. I told Showalter I’d haf to 
take the boss he’d bin drivin’ to draw the 
milk to the station, and he’d have to wait 
till I got back. He got uppish right away, 
so I up and told him that the time to 
make hay was when it didn’t rain, and I 
cal’lated I’d put old Nell on the rake 
when I got back; so he couldn’t have her 
at all, that day. 
“But I’ve simply got to have a boss 
today,” he sez. 
“MTiy,” I sez. “I guess Mrs. Showal- 
Missed His Aim 
EZRA BARLOW 
ter ’ll excuse you to-day, seein’ as I’m a 
little hard put to it on account o’ the 
ketchy weather.” 
“What has she got to do with it?” he 
ast me. 
“As I ain’t runnin’ your domestic af¬ 
fairs,” I sez, “I can’t answer that ques- - 
tion; but I was laborin’ under the im¬ 
pression that you’d bin drivin’ her out 
for her health and pleasure.” 
He started to swear, and then I up 
and told him that whilst I wa’n’t runnin’ 
his domestic arrangements, I was my 
own, and if he swore in the presence of a 
lady agin’ in my house he’d run into my 
fist so hard he’d need a set o’ store teeth 
before he’d do any more eatin’. O’ny fur 
her, I’d a lammed him. That one thing 
ought to a-leamed me that he was rotten 
all through. But he apologized so hanV- 
some that night, and Mrs. Showalter told 
me he was a veiy nervous man and didn’t 
mean anything, so I overlooked it— 
thought I did tell her I didn’t wonder he 
was nervous, smokin’ so many cigars as 
he did. 
He got a hoss somewhere else, and 
hired it by the week; so we used Nell 
right along. What with milkin’ twice a 
day and drawin’ the milk to the station 
ev’ry mornin’, hayin’, cultervatin’ corn, 
and sich, me’n Henry—he’s my oldest 
.son—didn’t have no time to devote to so¬ 
cial pupposes fur a spell, and ’twa’n’t 
till we got through hayin’ we resoomed 
acquaintance Avith Mary’s boarders. But 
Jimmy don’t cal’late to allow much to go 
on without his knowin’ about all they is 
to it; and, they bein’ no school, he im¬ 
proved each shinin’ hour keepin’ tab on 
the Showalters. So ’twa’n’t many min¬ 
utes after the last load o’ hay was in the 
barn before he told me Mrs. Showalter 
wa’n’t nothin’ but a hitehin’-post, and he 
w4s a soilin’ shai’es in some comp’ny or 
other. 
“If that’s his game,” sez I, “out he gits. 
They ain’t no confidence man goin’ to 
make Farview Farm his headquarters if 
I know it.” 
You’ve prob’ly come to the same con¬ 
clusion I had—I was a exceedin’ wise 
guy, as the city fellers say. If you have, 
that shows you don’t appreciate J. Au¬ 
gustus’s talents no more’n I did. That 
feller could a sold a cimmetary lot to a 
life-insurance agent! As soon as he see 
my nish was over, he devoted a evenin’ to 
me. Though I was dead sure at the start 
that he couldn’t sell me a purebred Hol¬ 
stein bull for ten cents, when he bid me 
good-night at half after nine he had me 
on his list for one hundred shares in the 
Interplanetai'y Rubber Tire and Automo¬ 
bile Supply Comp’ny, at $2.50 per share— 
par value $10 each. Moreover, I was to git 
a discount of twenty per cent, on all the 
goods I purchased fum the comp’ny— 
ev’rything guaranteed A No. 1 and fust- 
class. The on’y reason he didn’t git my 
check, was because my check-book was in 
the bureau in our bedroom, and I didn't 
want to disturb Mary. I might’s well 
tell you right now that that was the fust 
and last deal I ever put through Avithout 
consultin’ her. 
I was unlacin’ mj' shoes in the kitchen, 
and Mary Avas frettin’ upstaii's about my 
bein’ up so late, when the telephone rung. 
It was Jim a-callin’. 
“Ezry,” sez he, “I hate to trouble you 
this time o’ night, but I’ve got a bloated 
COAV up here. I’ve done all I can for her; 
and ’less you bring up that dingus o’ 
yours and tap her, I guess she’s a goner. 
She got into a piece o’ Alfalfy I Avas 
goin’ to make the third cuttin’ on next 
week and judgin’ by the size of 
her she ain’t left enough to make it 
pay me to (Continued on page 428) 
seA^enty miles f’um our front porch—but 
‘‘ He Made the Best Speech of Anybody ” 
