American Agriculturist, November 8, 1924 
329 
The Trouble Maker — By E. R. Eastman 
CHAPTER IV 
H AYING is not a one-man job. Some 
farmers manage it alone, with the 
help of the women folks, but Jim Taylor’s 
mother was an invalid and his sister 
already had too much on her youthful 
hands to help Jim in the fields, so for 
years Jim had obtained help to get his 
haying and harvesting done by changing 
works with his neighbor, John Ball. 
It was a blistering hot week following 
the meeting in the schoolhouse in the 
North Speedtown community. John 
Ball, with Taylor, and Bill Mead, the 
hired man, had been busy all day clean¬ 
ing up a piece of swamp grass which was 
the last of Ball’s haying. Swamp grass is 
slippery, hard to pitch either by hand or 
horse fork, and difficult to load. It was 
the first day that Ball and Taylor had 
seen each other since the meeting, and 
there had been very little talk between 
them. The almost breathless atmosphere 
and the slippery hay were straining their 
usually good-natured tempers. 
All day Bill had been trying to relieve 
the tension, but to little effect. After 
one period of unusually long silence, 
Bill could stand the gloom no longer. 
“Johnny,” he said, “you’re gittin’ old. 
A feller would have to sight along a fence 
to tell whether you were moving or not. 
I think I’ve caught an awful cold waitin’ 
around for you to put a little hay up 
here to-day!” 
Old Johnny exploded. “By cracky, if 
I couldn’t lay a load of hay better than 
that round robin of yours, I'd keep my 
dumb mouth shut! I’ve been lookin’ 
for every load to-day to fall off before 
we could get into the barn.” 
Being a good loader was Bill’s special 
pride and boast, so muttering something 
under his breath that sounded like “a 
cantankerous old fool,” he, too, lapsed 
into silence. 
T HE hot day wore on to the middle 
of the afternoon when the last load 
was on and started for the barn. Bill was 
driving, as usual, and Ball and Taylor, 
with pitchforks over their shoulders, 
were following along behind. 
“Jim,” said the old man, “ever since 
the meetin’ down at the schoolhouse 
the other night, I’ve been thinkin’ about 
what happened, and the more I think, the 
madder I get. I just want to take this 
occasion to tell you that you put me in a 
hole down there. Tried to show me up as 
a coward, which I ain’t, and you know I 
ain’t, and I don’t take to it kindly at all.” 
“What do you mean, Johnny?” asked 
Jim. “What did I do? I certainly didn’t 
mean to call you a coward; of course I 
know you’re not.” 
“You know darn well what you said 
about my not having the backbone of 
an old maid because I didn’t want to 
stir up the milk dealers. That’s a nice 
way to talk about a neighbor that s 
looked after you ever since you were a 
kid. 
“And I was right, too. It’s all right 
for that League feller to talk, but talkin 
is one thing and sellin milk is another. 
We’ve all got milk for sale and those 
dealers you were cuss in so much are the 
only ones who will buy it.” 
“Might better throw it in the ditch,” 
said the boy, “than sell it ah the time for 
less than it costs to make it.” 
“That’s just fool talk,” replied Ball. 
“I used to think you had some brains, 
but you’re getting foolisher every day, 
fightin’ down at the milk station like a 
common rowdy, and talkin’ all of the 
time, stirrin’ everybody in the neighbor¬ 
hood up and matin’ a lot of trouble. 
“Now, you hold on, Johnny. Voure 
an old neighbor, but I’m here to tell you 
that you or no one else can talk to me 
like that.” 
"Will if I want to,” said the old man, 
sticking his beard out belligerently, and 
now fully aroused. “You and your fool 
talk about this cooperation business 
makes me sick. All you want is some¬ 
body else to lean onto, and do your 
work for you. Never heard us old fellers 
talk about cooperation in the old days, 
but we got a sight more then than some 
of this younger set.” 
“Times change, Johnny. We used to 
use scythes, but even you use a mowing 
machine now.” 
“Well, I’m tellin’ you, young feller, 
that you may find out some day that the 
way to get things done is to talk less 
about them, or some fool theory, and go 
ahead and work them out for yourself. 
Got so you can’t even get in a load of hay 
without runnin’ over here for help.” 
“All right, Johnny, I guess you and I 
have come to the parting of the ways. 
We’ve neighbored back and forth since I 
was a kid, and it has sort of seemed like 
home to me down here. But I always 
thought that I returned value received. 
I am sorry that I have been so long 
learning that you thought you were 
doing me a favor when we changed work. 
“The real trouble is that we don’t see 
things alike. We’ve reached a New Day 
in this farm business, and some of you 
their troubles without any hope of re¬ 
lieving them.” 
“Maybe there is some chance, Dot, 
who knows? Don’t seem as if times 
could be any worse.” 
“You know they could be worse, Jim, 
and you know, if you have any common 
sense, that stirring up a row is not' going 
to help things any. Dad said that the 
League man admitted the other night 
at the meeting that the dealers had all of 
the money, all of the equipment for 
handling the milk, and all the power and 
influence.” 
“They haven’t got the milk,” said 
Jim, “and if the farmers just hang on to 
that, what could the dealers do?” 
“Well, the fanners won’t hang on. 
They never have, and they never will. 
They can’t stick together. In the mean¬ 
time, you are getting them quarreling 
among themselves. First thing you know, 
there will be all kinds of neighborhood 
hatreds and feuds. If that doesn’t 
mean anything to you, you might at 
least think of your mother. I’ve just 
been over talking with her. She lies 
What Has Happened So Far 
J IM TAYLOR has “done it,” according to the farmers who live in 
the typical little up-state community of Speedtown. After long 
brooding over the unequalities of life which make farm men and wo¬ 
men work so hard to get so little, he has taken a public stand with a 
new organization called the Dairymen’s League. Opinion is divided 
as to whether the fight for better conditions is worth undertaking. 
Chief among the stand-patters violently antagonized by Jim’s “new¬ 
fangled notions” is old Johnny Ball, father of Dorothy, Jim’s childhood 
sweetheart. At a meeting of farmers, young Bradley, the farm bureau 
agent, introduces a speaker for the new organization, who enlists the 
support of most of the men, in spite of Ball’s open opposition. Many 
sign the Dairymen’s League contract, with Jim Taylor leading off the 
list. It looks as though there might be a new day coming for Speed- 
town farmers. 
fellows don’t know it—and wouldn’t 
admit it if you did. You will have to 
keep on going the same old road while 
some of the rest of us are going to turn 
off, Johnny. We believe the way to meet 
change is with change. I can’t help 
thinkin’ that there is something to this 
cooperative idea, but you can rest assured 
that I will not bother you with it any 
more and that when you and I do any 
more, cooperating, you will have to say 
the W'ord first.” 
J IM turned on Lis heel and went through 
the barnyard gate into the road 
toward home. 
Staring moodily down the road as he 
walked, he did nert notice Dorothy, re¬ 
turning from an afternoon visit with his 
mother, until she spoke to him. 
“Hello, Jim,” she said. “Don’t even 
notice common folks when you meet 
them right on the road.” And then 
without waiting for him to answer, 
“Come on over here in the shade a little 
while. I want to visit with you.” 
“ Don’tfeel much like visitin’, ” said Jim. 
“All right, don’t,” said the girl start¬ 
ing down the road, “but it will be a long- 
day before I ask you to talk with me 
again.” 
“Oh, now. Dot, forgive me,” replied 
the boy. “I didn’t mean to answer you 
that way, but I haven’t got much dis¬ 
position anyway, and it seems as though 
it has been* tried mighty hard lately. 
If you’ll just come back, I’ll listen to 
you as long as you will talk.” 
When they had climbed through the 
wire fence and seated themselves in the 
shade, Dorothy said: 
“I am sorry, Jim, that you are stirring 
up so much trouble in the neighborhood 
about this milk business.” 
“About time somebody stirred these 
farmers up to do somethin’, I’m thinking.” 
“Now, Jim, be sensible. Just stop and 
think what you are doing. Everybody 
is talking and everybody is excited. 
You can’t do any good and you are just 
making these folks more conscious of 
there in bed and worries about what 
you are doing all of the time.” 
“ 1\/fOTHER is just the reason why 
-I*-*- I’m doing it,” said the boy. 
“It’s on her account I am so bitter. She 
is where she is because we farmers have 
never had a square deal in this milk 
business. These farm women have been 
worked to death, slaving in the house 
without any conveniences, taking care of 
large families, and then like as not, having 
to milk some six to a dozen cows every 
night and morning. Women like 
clothes—” 
“You do know something about us, 
don’t you?” Dorothy interrupted smiling. 
“These farm women don’t get one new 
calico dress a year,” continued Jim, 
paying no attention to the interruption. 
“They don't have any fun and they are 
old women at thirty. Go over to Speed- 
town to church, Dot, and look over the 
women in the congregation. Most of 
them are from the farms. And then go 
to Binghamton, or to any other city, and 
watch the women of the same age pass 
by on the street, and you’ll see what 
farming under present conditions does 
for our women. You know what it did to 
my mother. You’ll see why I know un¬ 
less conditions change, I can’t ever ask 
the girl I love to share them with me.” 
“Yes,” said Dorothy, “but it’s no 
worse for the women than it is for the 
men. One of the nice things about the 
farm business is that the women folks 
are real partners with the men, and most 
farm girls want to share the burden. 
Of course we are feminine and we like 
pretty things. What you say about 
things being pretty hard is right, but still 
I don’t see how you can make them any 
better by getting the dealers down on us 
so they won’t buy our milk at all. 
“And another thing, Jim,” said the 
girl, placing her hand gently on his arm, 
“I’ve always had the highest ideals 
about you. I’ve always been so proud of 
you. And it came as a shock when I heard 
about that public brawl of yours down at 
the milk station when you knocked 
Shepherd into the milk vat. Dad says, 
too, that you made a fool of yourself the 
other night down at the meeting. Dad 
says if you don’t look out, you’re going to 
get us all into a lot of trouble.” 
Jim jumped to his feet. That was the 
last straw. 
“I don’t know that I made any bigger 
fool of myself than your father did! 
Besides, I don’t care what he says. 
He’s getting to be a regular darned old 
stick-in-the-mud anyway!” 
“Jim Taylor!” cried the girl, “no one 
can talk that way to me about my father. 
I am absolutely disgusted with you and 
the way you have been acting lately.” 
“And I’m sayin’ here,” said Jim, “you 
might expect an old fogey like your 
father would be opposed to all progress, 
but I had hopes of a little something 
better from you.” 
With these bitter words, they climbed 
under the fence, and turned their backs 
on each other, while Jim went up the 
road and Dorothy down. 
CHAPTER V 
T HE passing of each season, except 
winter, brings to the country dweller 
a certain indefinable regret and sadness. 
Particularly is this true when summer 
fades into fall. Then there is a lull in the 
farm work which comes usually in the 
latter days of August. Haying is over, 
and with the exception of the corn, the 
buckwheat and the potatoes, the harvest 
is mostly done. Fields that earlier in the 
summer were covered with w'aving grass 
and grain now are bare and lonesome. 
Like an old man with his life work 
completed, they await winter’s long sleep 
under the mantle of the snows before 
they can bloom again in the resurrection 
of the springtime. 
The crickets with their incessant chirp, 
the gentle rustling of the grown corn, the 
softer heat of the late August sun already 
well started on its southward journey, 
and the mellow haze softening the dis¬ 
tant hills are all signs to him who lives 
on the land that another summer is 
passing. 
As the summer of 1916 approached the 
fall, the interest in the milk situation 
increased. It was certain that a big 
fight was coming. The Dairymen’s 
League had definitely determined to set 
the prices on the milk to be delivered 
after October first and it was just as 
definitely known that the dealers would 
not pay the League price. 
Representatives of the League were 
busy among the farmers trying to get 
them to join the organization and prepare 
for the approaching crisis. They had 
some success, but the majority—al¬ 
though agreeing that it was a good cause 
—held back for one reason or another 
and there was much pessimism, shaking 
of heads, and discouragement as to the 
outcome. 
Harry Bradley, the county agent, put 
in a busy summer riding the country 
almost night and day spreading informa¬ 
tion about the League and the general 
situation, and urging the farmers to the 
need of doing something to solve the 
serious situation which confronted them. 
The work brought him often to North 
Speedtown and he and Jim Taylor be¬ 
came good friends. 
O NE evening in late August, the two 
men were sitting on Jim’s porch 
discussing the milk problem and the 
League prospects. After a time the talk 
slowed up and stopped* while the men 
listened to the sounds of the peaceful 
summer night in the country. A frog 
or two croaked down in the swamp below 
the barn. From a distant back road came 
the rattle of a lumber wagon returning 
late from town. A warm south wind 
soughed softly through the trees in the 
yard, giving promis® of rain in the near 
future. 
(Continued on page 330) 
