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American Agriculturist, November 24,1923 
Crossroads of Conversation 
Could the telephone directory in the hands of each 
subscriber be revised from hour to hour, there would be 
no need for the information operator. But even during 
its printing and binding, thousands of changes take * 
place in the telephone community. New subscribers 
are added to the list. Old ones move their places of 
business or of residence. 
Though their names are not listed on the directory, 
these subscribers must be connected by the highways of 
speech with all others in the community. To supplement 
the printed page, there must be guides at the crossroads 
of conversation. 
Such are the information operators, selected for their 
task because of quickness and accuracy, courtesy and 
intelligence. At their desks, connected with the switch¬ 
boards in central offices, they relieve the regular opera¬ 
tors from answering thousands of questions about 
telephone numbers that would otherwise impede the 
rendering of service. If they are unnecessarily asked 
for numbers already in the directory, service is retarded. 
“Information” stands for the most complete utilization 
of telephone facilities. 
"BELL SYSTEM*’ 
American Telephone and Telegraph company 
And Associated Companies 
One Policy, One System, Universal Service, 
and all directed toward Better Service 
6 FOX TROTS V. 
1 Love You— Annabelle—Oh! Min 
No, No Noia : -Hot Roasted Peanuts 
Wnat Do You Do, Sunday, Mary 
6 POPULAR SONGS 
Last Night On The Old Back Porch 
Just A Girl That Men Forget [Love 
Oh Gee, Oh Gosh, Oh Golly, I’m lri 
When \^i)l The Sun Shine For Me 
My Sweetie Went Away 
Oh;* You Little Son-Uv-Er-Gun 
2 WALTZES 
Dreamy Melody Good Night 
2 MARCHES 
Tenth Regiment March 
National Emblem March 
Light Double-Disc 
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MUSICAL LEAGUE OF AMERICA 
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Hertzler& Zook 
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farm. 
HERTZLER & ZOOK CO. 
Box 44 Belleville, Pa. 
Write for Book 
teday 
FARM WAGONS 
High or low wheels—steel or wood—wide 
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ELECTRIC WHEEL CO* 2 Elm Street, Quinsy, IIL 
Sammy Helps Pa Butcher 
All Had a Good Time — Except Pa and the Pig 
“"YTEP, we butchered 
X at our house yes¬ 
terday.” Sammy strolled into the shop 
where I was mending a harness and 
seated himself on a workbench. 
“That so, Sammy, how did you get 
along with it?” Sammy grinned and 
I knew there was a story in the back¬ 
ground. 
“Got along all right after we got 
started.” 
“Had trouble getting started, did you?” 
“Yep—any way, Pa did.*’ Sammy’s 
grin widened; Sammy resembles a Ford. 
It takes a lot of persuading to get him 
to go, but when he once gets started 
he “rambles righ. along.” 
“Have trouble getting the water 
hot?” I hazarded. ' * 
“Nope, Ma tended to that. Got the 
water hot all right.” 
“Pig didn’t get away, did it?” I 
questioned desperately. I was beginning 
to doubt my ability to get Sammy 
“started.” 
“Not till after it was dead,” and 
Sammy’s grin became a chuckle. 
“The pig got away after it was dead! 
Why, how did that happen?” 
“Say, it was the funniest thing you 
ever saw. I nearly died laffin’. Pa’ll 
skin me, tho, if he knows I told, so don’t 
you say anything.” And Sammy looked 
at me inquiringly. 
I duly promised not to say a word, 
“cross my heart, hope to die,” and all 
the rest of it. 
“Well, you see it was this way. Pa 
got the barrel out and built a platform 
for it and Ma had the water hot in the 
boiler. The pig was killed and already to 
scald when Pa says: ‘Sally,’ that’s Ma, 
‘I’m going to nail a piece of board on 
the corner of the shed above the barrel. 
Then I’ll tie a rope to the pig’s feet 
and throw it over the board and we can 
pull it out of the barrel twice as easy.’ 
Ma looked at Pa and then at the piece of 
board he was goin’ to nail up and said: 
‘I don’t believe that board is strong 
enough. You had better get a stronger 
piece.’ ” 
“ ‘Of course,’ says Pa, sarcastic like, 
‘No matter what I do I should do it a 
little different. I guess I have been 
nailing boards for the last thirty years, 
and ought to know when a board is 
strong enough to hold what I want it 
to hold.’ 
“ ‘Even if you have, there is still a 
chance that you might be able to learn 
something. But go ahead, it’s your 
funeral,’ and Ma went back to tend her 
fire. Pa nailed on the board and we 
poured the water in the barrel and got 
the pig in with a rope on its hind feet. 
We soused Mr. Pig up and down in the 
water till Pa thought he was scalded 
enough, and then he threw the rope 
over the board and started to pull. It 
looked like it ought to work all right 
and I guess it would have if that board 
had been a little stronger, but just as 
Pa got to pullin’ good and hard the old 
board she broke. Part of it stayed on 
the shed but part of it came down and 
hit Pa square on the bean. Say, it was 
an awful crack. Pa started dancin’ 
up and down and sayin’ things and Ma 
shooed me out around the corncrib. 
“ ‘Shame on you William, such lan¬ 
guage,’ I heard Ma say as I went 
around the end of the crib. By the 
time I got around on the other side," 
walkin’ slow, Pa had got over it a lit¬ 
tle and was trying to get the p ( ig out 
of the barrel. But the pig was stuck. 
Pa tugged and tugged and then Ma 
tugged and then we all tugged to¬ 
gether, but it was no use. 
“ ‘I think, William,’ says Ma, soft 
and sugary like, ‘if you had saved a 
little of the corn for my chickens and 
not fed it all to the pig, we might have 
been able to get him out of the barrel.’ 
Pa didn’t save any corn for the chickens 
and Ma is pretty sore.” Sammy paused 
and looked at me thoughtfully. 
“Say,” he asked: “Why is it that it 
makes a man so tarnation mad to have 
a woman tell him something he has 
done wrong and talks like butter 
wouldn’t melt in her mouth while she’s 
doin’ it? He wouldn’t be half so mad 
if she would turn loose and cuss, or 
something.” Being unable to enlighten 
Sammy on this subject, he continued. 
“When Ma started in about the corn, 
Pa threw the rope down and said: Til 
show you that I can 
get this pig out of 
hei’e,’ and he dashed into the barn. ‘I 
wonder what he is going to do now?’ 
said Ma, thoughtful like. She wasn’t 
long finding out. 
“In a minute or two Pa came out of 
the barn with the new pinto he bought 
of Frank Jackson last week. Pa 
grabbed the rope that was tied to the 
pig and tied the other end to the saddle 
horn. He was goin’ to make the horse 
pull the pig out. He did, too, but he 
was in too much of a hurry. Instead 
of starting slow, he hit that wall-eyed 
Jane a crack with a stick and she made 
a jump. The pig move.d all right. So 
did the barred and the platform, and Pa 
moved too when the hot water hit him. 
By the time Pa got the pinto stopped 
the pig was out of the ‘barrel, but 
Pa was about the maddest man you 
ever saw. When Pa gets fightin’ mad 
he always jerks off his hat and throws 
it on the ground. This time he threw 
it on the pig, and jumped onto it his- 
self, and then on and then off, all the 
time tellin’ that pig what he thought of 
him and all his ancestors and all his 
brothers and sisters and all the rest of 
pig creation. Ma watched him a 
minute and then said to herself, kinda 
soft like, ‘Off again on again, off again 
on again; he should have been called 
Finnigan.’ 
“All the time Pa was doin’ his jump¬ 
in’ stunt the pinto stood with her head 
turned watchin’ him and getting more 
and more excited. I kn6w something 
was going to happen pretty quick, but 
I thought Pa’d find it out soon enough 
so I kept still. Anyway, I wanted to 
see what would happen. And then 
I’ve found it is better not to do too 
much talkin’ when Pa gets real mad. 
He would rather do it himself. Well, 
the pinto finally decided she had better 
beat it, and she«did. It happened that 
just as she started Pa landed on the 
pig. When the pinto jerked, Pa’s feet 
went out from under him and he came 
down on his back on the pig with his 
feet in the air. Say, I wish you could 
have seen him. You know Pa is pretty 
fat and he seemed to just about balance 
on-that pig. He certainly got a swift 
ride before he rolled off. When he did 
finally fall off he was goin’ so fast he 
couldn’t stop rolling till he went clear 
into the fence corner and Ma’s goose¬ 
berry bushes. Say, those gooseberry 
bushes are awful scratchy. I fell into 
them once .myself when I was try¬ 
ing to ride our old brindle cow. By 
the time Pa got himself out of the 
bushes and back to the barn Ma and 
me had the horse stopped and the pig 
untied and was ready to scrape the 
side that didn’t already have the hair 
all rubbed off. Ma was beginning to 
get kinda riled up herself. 
“‘William,’ she says; she most al¬ 
ways calls Pa Will, only when he gets 
mad like he done this time, then she 
calls him William, and she says: ‘Wil¬ 
liam, I broke the ice in the horse 
trough. If you will go and dip your 
head you may be in a condition to help 
me scrape this hog.’ Pa he didn’t'say 
nothing, but he put the pinto in the 
barn and went at that hog like he was 
some peeved at it. Ma she didn't say 
nothing more but hummed away to 
herself as she worked, and every once 
in a while she would chuckle like she 
was thinkin’ of something funny. 
Whenever she did that Pa would snort 
disgusted like and work harder than 
ever. Ma says Pa ain’t got no sense 
of humor. 
“Anyway, we had liver for dinner, 
but I don’t think Pa likes butchering 
very well.” 
A CHEAP REMEDY FOR LICE 
I have found a very simple and good 
and cheap remedy to get rid of poultry 
lice. Go to your local garage and ask 
the repair man to save the old oil which 
he draws out of the cars. Take this 
and put on the roosts and in all places 
where mites harbor, at least once a 
month, and you will soon be rid of lice 
at no expense. To put it on use an old 
paint brush or punch a small hole in 
the bottom of a tomato can and direct 
the stream of oil on the roosts. — W. T. 
R., Pennsylvania. 
By E. M. FRUIT 
