1350 
November 24, 191-7 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
A BaJanced Ration; Thanksgiving 
Part II, 
“ICndubance.” —It just settled down to 
a test between boy and man to see which 
would give in first. That was part of 
the “Yankee” of it. In those days every 
contact between two New England people 
wms a conflict of wits or will power— 
everything from trading horses to hiring 
a new minister. John would never have 
thought Uncle Daniel was a full man if 
the old gentleman had given him a piece 
of sausage and a buckwheat cake that 
first morning. Uncle Daniel could never 
have bragged that he had a “smart boy” 
if John had been brought to his “sumsr 
by only two .slices of brown bread! For 
while all through the ages the ruling 
powers have hated rebels and cut off their 
heads whenever lawful or possible, these 
same rulers have always had a sort of 
sneaking admiration for the outlaws. John 
^d another chance to locate the hound 
and hare before breakfast, but he couldn’t 
do it. So he had his two slices of brown 
bread—a little salt with them. I cannot 
say he spread a smile over them as a sub¬ 
stitute for butter, but they went down. 
Heavy Hours. —It was the day before 
Thanksgiving, and no school. PLay? 
John’s play hours were as wide apart as 
his dollars. He earned $4 a year “pump¬ 
ing the organ” at the church, as the only 
source of income. Three times a day, 52 
times a year, made 150 times. One hot 
day John counted the strokes required to 
keep the leaky lungs of that old organ in 
singing power. It required 780 pump- 
handle strokes. Multiply 780 by 150, and 
divide the product into $4, and see what 
you get. John made it about 2^/4 cents 
for each service, and it seemed pretty 
cheap wind. As for the price for each 
stroke, that faded away in the distance— 
a fit companion for that hare. So when 
I say that play hours were earned as 
laboriously as those dollars you realize 
what boy life was on that farm. Uncle 
Daniel was no scientist, but he knew 
food provides energy and work burns it 
up! When the woodpile was emptied 
the fire went out and the stove went cold. 
The way to bring a boy to his senses and 
bis sums was to empty the woodbox by 
making him work off the energy in the 
brown bread. An empty stomach will 
dissolve the hardest “grit” in a boy s 
character. So John went on the wood- 
pile out back of the shed. You take a 
cold, gray November day and run a buck¬ 
saw from breakfast to dinner and there 
will not be much “energy” left in two 
slices of brown bread, and Uncle Daniel 
fully expected the boy to give in and cry 
by dinner time. 
Scenic Effect. — If anyone had ac¬ 
cused Uncle Daniel of being a psycholo¬ 
gist the old man would have ordered the 
dangerous character off the place and then 
gone in to hunt the word in the diction¬ 
ary. Yet the way he had appealed to the 
boy’s imagination showed him a master 
at the art. Why did he set the dog on the 
neighbor’s eat if not to bring the boys 
mind back to the hare and the hound? 
Wliy did he chase the Brahma rooster all 
over the yard with Aunt Mary shaking 
her apron in the doorway? He caught 
old Brahma right by the woodpile, and 
even borrowed the boy’s hatchet to toma¬ 
hawk his victim. Then he sat down in 
the barn doorway to dress old Brahma. 
Eveiw now and then he would glance up 
at the boy as if to say: “Now doesn t 
this make you think out where the bare 
is?” 
Oh, I think the old man tried to make 
it easy for the boy, but it was no use. 
The boy went in and ate his brown bread 
without a murmur. He went up into his 
room for a moment and then went back 
to his woodpile. He wasn’t defiant, but 
just silent and “game.” 
“Holding Out.” — Through the long 
afternoon the boy worked on. Aunt Mary 
tried a little of what is called the “psycho¬ 
logical stuff” on him by opening the 
kitchen door. The odor of her mince pies 
and plum pudding and the sage dressing, 
ready for old Brahma, poured out upon 
the little worker and nearly overpowered 
him. He did try to get on the scent of 
that hare, but the fumes probably got 
into his nose and spoiled the hunt. He 
thought he might work the “sum” up in 
his room, and they let him go. Aunt 
Mary was deaf and could not hear certain 
suspicious sounds in the chimney, 
she did not notice the boy’s pockets when 
he came down. Uncle Daniel was frankly 
puzzled when John showed up for supper 
still “going strong,” as the old man put 
it. Something was wrong, or that was 
wonderful brown bread—or possibly a 
wonderful boy. The old man hesitated 
as he served out the leftover beans and 
fried potatoes. He wanted to give that 
“enduring boy” a good share, but that 
would destroy discipline, and when that 
went all the foundations of society went 
with it. So John had his two slices of 
bread and extra water and went off to 
bed early. It was necessary to talk loud 
to Aunt Mary, and John heard the con¬ 
versation downstairs. 
“Mrs. Reed, you haven’t fed him any¬ 
thing, have you?” 
“Not a bit—I thought you had. You 
always give up first.” 
“No I don’t! But it beats all how he 
JShe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
keeps up and coming on bread and 
water!” 
“It does! He’s tough and stubborn.” 
“So he is. If he could only exercise 
such powers on something worthy!” 
“There, you are weakening on him. 
You’ll be feeding him next thing.” 
And John just looked at the chimney 
shadows—and grinned ! 
The Final Test. — Thanksgiving 
morning was a busy time on a New Eng¬ 
land farm—one of the rare play days 
for the boy. But there was no play for 
John. He turned out in good time and 
did his chores and ate his bread with 
vifeor. Uncle Daniel began to waver. 
He had never expected this. It upset 
all his exjieinence and, although he did 
not know it, all scientific theories as well. 
Years ago, when they wanted to bring 
stubborn rebels to time, they broke them 
on the “wheel.” That was the end of 
all who made “bre.aks” against the settled 
order of things. You gentlemen who were 
boys on one of those rocky farms know 
that they had a “wheel” there on which 
some of us broke our spirit and our desire 
to be farmers! This “wheel” was a 
grindstone. The boy was expected to turn 
it while the farmer or the hired man held 
down the ax or scythe. I have a friend 
who says the wheels of the modern car 
have taken our young folks away from 
the farm. I think that old grinds-tone 
carried or drove more of them away! 
No use talking, if farmers had put a foot- 
power on the stone and substituted their 
own legs for the boy’s arm, there would 
be fewer abandoned farms today. So 
when Aunt Mary wanted an edge on the 
carving knife Uncle Daniel put John on 
the wheel. The boy turned the handle 
while the old man “held on.” It made 
the boy puff, and the man thought he 
surely had him going at last. So he 
hunted up tw'o axes, three hatchets, two 
scythes, a billhook and three hoes, and 
arranged them all beside the stone! Of 
course there was no need of sharpening 
those scythes and hoes, but that boy must 
be made to give in. Then began a great 
contest between the old man’s hands and 
the boy’s arms and back. It was rheuma¬ 
tism against brown bread. The old man 
“held on” with tw'o axes and started with 
a hatchet, when his fingers failed and the 
hatchet fell on the ground. It is true that 
John was within three turns of his limit, 
three big tears had started down his 
cheek, and he was ready to give in. It 
was the minister who came just in time 
to #;ave their faces! 
A Friend In Need.— I shall alw^ays 
think the minister knew something of 
what was going on, and had come to do 
a little quiet church work. He was by 
no means a handsome man, but he did 
look like a wingless angel to both boy and 
man at that grindstone Of coui’se no 
more work could be done since the min¬ 
ister had dropped in for dinner, and Uncle 
Daniel soon had him in the melancholy 
parlor while John went out to feed the 
hens. I think the minister got tired of 
that parlor, for when Uncle Daniel was 
called on to help mash the potatoes and 
set the table the minister came out to the 
henhouse, where he and John went after 
the hare and hounds together. And of 
course the minister was asked to say a 
blessing when at last dinner was ready. 
He did it well. He remembered the old 
folks and their bounty and then he put 
in a fine word for “the capable boy who 
has shown such patient endurance and 
w'ho now gladly gives thanks that he 
understands the principle at the root of 
his hard problem!” 
That was all. Uncle Daniel cut a big 
slice of white meat off old Brahma and 
one of his two bony legs, with dressing 
enough to make a full suit of clothes, and 
passed it to Aunt Mary. She loaded on 
potato and squash and gravy until the 
plate ran over—and silently passed it to 
•Tohn. Not a word was said—that was 
not the New England way. The minister 
just coughed and looked out the window, 
and so I do not remember anything more 
“thankful” than that change from brown 
bread to baked Brahma. 
A Balanced Ration. —I think the old 
folks regarded John thereafter with some¬ 
thing of awe. Here was a boy who 
seemed to upset the laws of nature. There 
wasn’t enough protein in brown bread to 
keep him going as he did. Maybe he was 
like a human clover plant, getting his 
nitrogen out of the air! The old folks 
did not put it just that way, but that is 
what they felt. They bad a boy to be 
bragged about—when he was not present! 
The minister was wiser. One day he met 
John on the road, and asked in his kindly 
way how it was done. Then the secret 
came out. A squirrel had made a hoard 
of nuts under the eaves near that old 
chimney. There were hickories and chest¬ 
nuts. John had found this food conserva¬ 
tion headquarters, and quietly added to it. 
So when limited to brown bread he had 
commandeered Mr. Squirrel’s supply, and 
balanced the bread with a pint or so of 
nut meats. I told you he mixed brains 
with the bread and if you look at the 
analysis of nuts you will see that the 
shells are well packed with brain-forming 
food. A hickory stick will not improve 
men’s mental power, but hickorynuts wilL 
It is time that my family voted against a 
“turkeyless Thanksgiving,” but whenever 
I pass a pile of hickories or che.stnuts 
in the market I think of that “most 
thankful” thing, and the balanced ration 
of brown bread and nuts! Who would 
not be thankful for “sustaining power?” 
H. w. c. 
NAPOLEON said: 
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Crops move the same way. Improperly fed crops 
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Addi^ss Crop Book Department 
THE COE-MORTIMER COMPANY 
Subsidiary of the American Agricultural Chemical Company 
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