WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM AND GARDEN, HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.

NO. I.

There is an old farm-house in the State of New Jersey, not a hundred miles from the city of Trenton, having the great railroad which runs between New York and Philadelphia so near to it that one can hear the whistle of the locomotive as it hurries onward every hour in the day, and see the trains of cars as they whirl by with their loads of living freight. The laborers in the fields along the road, though they see these things so frequently, invariably pause in their work and watch the advancing train until it passes them, and follow it with their eyes until it is nearly lost in the distance. The boy leans upon his hoe, the mower rests upon his scythe, the ploughman halts his horses in the furrow, all stop to gaze upon a spectacle that has long ceased to be either a wonder or a novelty. Why it is so may be difficult to answer, except that the snorting combination of wheels, and cranks, and fire, and smoke, thundering by the quiet fields, breaks in upon the monotonous labor of the hand who works alone, with no one to converse with, for the fact is equally curious, that gangs of laborers make no pause on the appearance of a locomotive. They have companionship enough already.

This old wooden farm-house was a very shabby affair. To look at it, one would be sure that the owner had a particular aversion to both paint and whitewash. The weather-boarding was fairly honeycombed by age and exposure to the sun and rain, and in some places the end of a board had dropped off, and hung down a foot or two, for want of a nail which everybody about the place appeared to be too lazy or neglectful to supply in time. One or two of the window-shutters had lost a hinge, and they also hung askew, nobody had thought it worth while to drive back the staple when it first became loose.

Then there were several broken lights of glass in the kitchen windows. As the men about the house neglected to have them mended, or to do it themselves by using the small bit of putty that would have kept the cracked ones from going to pieces, the women had been compelled to keep out the wind and rain by stuffing in the first thing that came to hand. There was a bit of red flannel in one, an old straw bonnet in another, while in a third, from which all the glass was gone, a tolerably good fur hat, certainly worth the cost of half a dozen lights, had been crammed in to fill up the vacancy. The whole appearance of the windows was deplorable. Some of them had lost the little wooden buttons which kept up the sash when hoisted, and which anybody could have replaced by whittling out new ones with his knife; but as no one did it, and as the women must sometimes have the sashes raised, they propped them up with pretty big sticks from the wood-pile. It was not a nice sight, that of a rough stick as thick as one’s arm to hold up the sash, especially when, of a sultry day, three or four of them were always within view.

Then the wooden step at the kitchen door, instead of being nailed fast to the house, was not only loose, but it rested on the ground so unevenly as to tilt over whenever any one stepped carelessly on its edge. As the house contained a large family, all of whom generally lived in the kitchen, there was a great deal of running in and out over this loose step. When it first broke away from the building, it gave quite a number of severe tumbles to the women and children. Everybody complained of it, but nobody mended it, though a single stout nail would have held it fast. One dark night a pig broke loose, and, snuffing and smelling around the premises in search of forage, came upon the loose step, and, imagining that he scented a supper in its neighborhood, used his snout so vigorously as to push it clear away from the door. One of the girls, hearing the noise, stepped out into the yard to see what was going on; but the step being gone, and she not observing it, down she went on her face, striking her nose on the edge of a bucket which some one had left exactly in the wrong place, and breaking the bone so badly that she will carry a very homely face as long as she lives. It was a very painful hurt to the poor girl, and the family all grieved over her misfortune; but not one of the men undertook to mend the step. Finally, the mother managed to drive down two sticks in front of it, which held it up to the house, though not half so firmly as would have been done by a couple of good stout nails.

Things were very much in the same condition all over the premises. The fence round the garden, and in fact all about the house, was dropping to pieces simply for want of a nail here and there. The barn-yard enclosure was strong enough to keep the cattle in, but it was a curious exhibition of hasty patch-work, that would hurt the eye of any mechanic to look at. As to the gates, every one of them rested at one end on the ground. It was hard work even for a man to open and shut them, as they had to be lifted clear up before they could be moved an inch. For a half-grown boy to open them was really a very serious undertaking, especially in muddy weather. The posts had sagged, or the upper staples had drawn out, but nobody attended to putting them to rights, though it would not have been an hour’s job to make them all swing as freely as every good farm-gate ought to. The barn-yard was a hard place for the boys on this farm.

No touch of whitewash had been spread over either house, or fence, or outbuilding, for many years, though lime is known to everybody as being one of the surest preservers of wood-work, as well as the very cheapest, while it so beautifully sets off a farm-house to see its surroundings covered once a year with a fresh coat of white. The hen-house was of course equally neglected, though whitewash is so well known to be an indispensable purifier of such places, materially helping to keep away those kinds of vermin that prevent poultry from thriving. In fact, the absence of lime was so general, that the hens could hardly pick up enough to make egg-shells. Had they laid eggs without shells, the circumstance would have mortified the hens as much as it would have surprised the family. As it was, their only dependence was on the pile of lime rubbish which was left every spring after whitewashing the kitchen. The women who presided there did manage to fix up things once a year. They thought lime was good to drive away ants and roaches, and so they and the hens were the only parties on the premises who used it.

There were many other things about this farm-house that were quite as much neglected, more than it is worth while at present to mention, unless it be the wood-pile. Though there were two men on the farm, and several well-grown boys, yet the women could rarely prevail on any of them to split a single stick of wood. The wood for the house caused great trouble, it was difficult to get it at all. Then when it did come, it was crooked and knotty, much of it such as a woman could not split. Yet whenever a stick or two was wanted, the females of the family must run out into the shed to chop and split it. They never could get an armful ahead, such was the strange neglect of one of the most indispensable comforts of housekeeping. If the female head of the family had only thought of letting the male portion go a few times without their dinners, it is more than likely they would have brought them to terms, and taught them that it was quite as much their duty to split the wood as it was hers to cook their dinners. But she was a good, easy creature, like most of the others. They had all been brought up in the same neglectful way, just rubbing along from day to day, never getting ahead, but everything getting ahead of them.

This farmer’s name was Philip Spangler, and he was unlucky enough to have a hundred acres in his farm. The word unlucky is really a very proper one; because it was unlucky for such a man as Philip that he should have so much more land than he knew how to manage, and it was equally unlucky for the land that it should have so poor a manager. The man was perfectly sober, and in his own way was a very industrious one. He worked hard himself, and made every one about him do the same. He was what is known as a “slaving farmer,” up by daylight, having all hands up and out of doors quite as early as himself, and he and they stuck to it as long as they could see to work. With him and them it was all work and no play. He had no recreations; he took no newspaper, had no reading in the house except the children’s school-books, the Bible, and an almanac, which he bought once a year, not because he wanted it, but because his wife would have it.

What was very singular in Mr. Spangler’s mode of managing things, when a wet day came on, too rainy for out-of-door work, he seemed to have no indoor employments provided, either for himself or hands to do, having apparently no sort of forethought. On such occasions he let everything slide, that is, take care of itself, and went, in spite of the rain, to a tavern near by on the railroad, where he sat all day among a crowd of neighboring idlers who collected there at such times; for although it might be wet enough to stop all work in the fields, it was never too wet to keep them away from the tavern. There these fellows sat, drinking juleps, smoking pipes, or cigars that smelt even worse, and retailing among each other the news of their several neighborhoods.

What Spangler thus picked up at the tavern was about all the news he ever heard. As to talking of farming, of their crops, or what was the best thing to raise, or how best to carry on this or that branch of their business, such matters were rarely spoken of. They came there to shake off the farm. Politics was a standing topic, who was likely to be nominated on their ticket, whether he would be elected, and whether it was true that so-and-so was going to be sold out by the sheriff. It was much to Spangler’s credit, that, if at this rainy-day rendezvous he learned nothing useful, he contracted no other bad habit than that of lounging away a day when he should have been at home attending to his business. It was much after the same fashion that he spent his long winter’s evenings, dozing in the chimney-corner, for the tavern was too far away, or he would have spent them there.

Now it somehow happens that there are quite as many rainy days in the country as in the city. But those who live in the latter never think of quitting work because it snows deep or rains hard. The merchant never closes his counting-house or store, nor does the mechanic cease to labor from such a cause; they have still something on hand, whether it rain or shine. Even the newsboys run about the streets as actively, and a hundred other kinds of workers keep on without interruption.

If the laboring men of a large city were to quit work because of a hard rain, there would be a loss of many thousand dollars for every such day that happened. So also with a farmer. There is plenty of rainy-day work on a farm, if the owner only knew it, or thought of it beforehand, and set his men or boys to do it, in the barn, or cellar, or wood-shed. If he had a bench and tools, a sort of workshop, a rainy day would be a capital time for him to teach his boys how to drive a nail, or saw a board, or push a plane, to make a new box or mend an old one, to put a new handle in an axe or hoe, or to do twenty such little things as are always wanted on a farm. Besides saving the time and money lost by frequent running to the blacksmith or wheelwright, to have such trifles attended to, things would be kept always ready when next wanted, and his boys would become good mechanics. There is so much of this kind of light repairing to be done on a farm, that, having a set of tools, and knowing how to use them, are almost as indispensable as having ploughs and harrows, and the boys cannot be too early instructed in their use. Many boys are natural mechanics, and even without instruction could accomplish great things if they only had a bench and tools. The making of the commonest bird-box will give an ambitious boy a very useful lesson.

It seemed that Mr. Spangler was learning nothing while he lived. His main idea appeared to be, that farming was an affair of muscle only, that it was hands, not heads, that farmers ought to have; and that whoever worked hardest and longest, wasted no time in reading, spent no money for fine cattle or better breeds of pigs, or for new seeds, new tools or machines, and stuck to the good old way, was the best farmer. He never devoted a day now and then to visiting the agricultural exhibitions which were held in all the counties round him, where he would be sure to see samples of the very best things that good farmers were producing, fine cattle, fine pigs, fine poultry, and a hundred other products which sensible men are glad to exhibit at such fairs, knowing that it is the smart men who go to such places to learn what is going on, as well as to make purchases, and that it is the agricultural drones who stay at home. The fact was, he had been badly educated, and he could not shake off the habits of his early life. He had been taught that hard work was the chief end of man.

Of course such a farmer had a poor time of it, as well as the hands he employed. He happened to be pretty well out of debt, there being only a small mortgage on his farm; but he was so poor a manager that his hard work went for little, in reality just enough to enable his family to live, with sometimes very close shaving to pay interest. As to getting rich, it was out of the question. He had a son whose name was Joe, a smart, ambitious boy of sixteen years old; another son, Bill, two years younger; and an orphan named Tony King, exactly a year younger than Joe; together with a hired man for helper about the farm.

Mr. Spangler had found Tony in the adjoining county. On the death of his parents, they being miserably poor, and having no relations to take care of him, he had had a hard time among strangers. They kept him until old enough to be bound out to a trade. Mr. Spangler thinking he needed another hand, and being at the same time in such low repute as a farmer and manager that those who knew him were not willing to let their sons live with him as apprentices, he was obliged to go quite out of the neighborhood, where he was not so well known, in order to secure one. In one of his trips he brought up at the house where Tony was staying, and, liking his looks, for he was even a brighter boy than Joe Spangler, he had him bound to him as an apprentice to the art and mystery of farming.

In engaging himself to teach this art and mystery to Tony, he undertook to impart a great deal more knowledge than he himself possessed, a thing, by the way, which is very common with a good many other people. Altogether it was a hard bargain for poor Tony; but when parents are so idle and thriftless as to expose their children to such a fate as his, they leave them a legacy of nothing better than the very hardest kind of bargains.

In addition to this help, about a year after Tony took up his quarters with Mr. Spangler, there came along an old man of seventy, a sort of distant relation of the Spanglers, who thenceforward made the farm his home. Mr. Spangler and his wife called him “Benny,” but all the younger members of the family, out of respect for his age, called him “Uncle,” so that in a very short time he went by no other name than that of “Uncle Benny,” and this not only on the farm, but all over the neighborhood.

Uncle Benny turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls had ever been acquainted with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he was very fond of children, and like generally begets like. He was a very different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been well educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting disposition, he had travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude of strange men and strange things, and had such a way of telling what he had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who heard him. Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of foreign countries, or how people lived in our great cities, or how they carried on farming in other parts of our country, he talked so pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his chair in the chimney corner, and once or twice actually tipped over quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny got fairly under way, there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.

Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both men and boys, and even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much, that he had something appropriate for every event that turned up. Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides this, he was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed able to make any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.

In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an old man, and not strong enough to do a full day’s work at mowing or hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a hundred broken places that had been neglected for years before he came to live there. If he saw anything out of order, a gate with no latch, a picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling defect about the premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to look at.

It was Uncle Benny who nailed up the loose door-step which the pig had rooted away from its place, causing Lucy Spangler to fall on the edge of a bucket and break her nose. Lucy came out to thank him for doing the thing so nicely; for ever since the accident to her nose, she had been very skittish about putting her foot on the step.

“Ah, Lucy,” said Uncle Benny, “I wish I could mend your nose as easily.”

“Indeed I wish so too,” replied Lucy.

Inside of the house were numerous things that wanted looking after in the same way. There was not a bolt or a latch that would work as it ought to. All the closet locks were out of order, while one half the doors refused to shut. In fact there were twenty little provocations of this kind that were perpetual annoyances to the women. Uncle Benny went to work and removed them all; there was no odd job that he was not able to go through with. Indeed, it was the luckiest day in the history of that farm when he came to live upon it, for it did seem that, if the farm were ever to be got to rights, he was the very man to do it. Now, it was very curious, but no one told Uncle Benny to do these things. But as soon as he had anchored himself at Mr. Spangler’s he saw how much the old concern was out of gear, and, providing himself with tools, he undertook, as one of his greatest pleasures, to repair these long-standing damages, not because he expected to be paid for it, but from his own natural anxiety to have things look as they ought.

The boys watched the old man’s operations with great interest, for both Joe and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus gave them a miserably weak decoction for breakfast. Now, Uncle Benny had been used to strong coffee, and couldn’t stand what Mrs. Spangler gave him. So he unshipped the mill, took it to pieces, with a small file sharpened up the grinders, which by long use had become dull, oiled its joints, and screwed it up in a new place, where it was impossible for the knuckles to be bruised. It then worked so beautifully, that, instead of every one hating to put his hand on the crank, the difficulty was to keep the children away from it, they would grind on it an hour at a time. Such a renovation of damaged goods had never before been seen on Spangler’s premises.

Author of “Ten Acres Enough."

(To be continued.)