Hidden Treasure Part 14

"Maybe you could get him to do it for you, Alex," said Bob. "Why don't you ask him?"

"I've already done that," replied Alex, "but he wants to sell us one."

"Well, are you going to buy one?" asked Bob, as they watched the tractor work.

"I don't know what father'll do," replied Alex. "Suppose we'll have to think it over."

When the afternoon sun got low, the banker called the men together in the barnyard and said:

"There's something I want to say to you men. I know that some of you are pretty hard pressed for money just now, and don't feel much like investing in new equipment, but I've recently made a careful survey of the farming conditions in our county and have taken a trip west to look over what they're doing out in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas. In fact, I was gone for four weeks last summer, looking over the situation generally, and I've come to the conclusion that we've just as good farms right here in Pennsylvania as they have in any of the western states--only they've gotten ahead of us out there by adopting many modern methods. There isn't a thing they do out there, though, that we can't do right here. Another thing I discovered, and that was that the banks in the West are very much more liberal to the farmers than the banks have been in the East. I don't mind telling you," he said smiling, "that I picked up a number of pointers myself on how to run a bank and when I got back I talked the matter over with our board of directors.

"From now on the First National is going to be run on different principles than we have ever run it before. We're going to do 'Constructive Banking,' which means in plain English that we're going to help you farmers with liberal loans wherever we find a man who's progressive and working intelligently. We're fitting up a special room in the bank that we're going to call our 'Bureau of Farm Information'; we're going to put a capable man in charge of it to answer questions; we're sending down to the Bureau of Agriculture at Was.h.i.+ngton for a lot of farm bulletins on every subject of interest to you men, also to manufacturers of farm machinery and other appliances that can be used on the farm. The manufacturers of Portland Cement are fitting us up with a complete line of literature on farm buildings and how to build them. In fact, there won't be any information connected with a farm, its equipment or the construction of farm buildings that we won't be able to give you. There's some of you men here who don't do your banking with us--you're just as welcome to the information as the others. We want you to make this your room when you come to town--it will be open every day from eight o'clock in the morning until six o'clock in the evening. There'll be tables there where you can do any writing you want, and a billboard to stick up notices of anything you've got for sale. I hope you'll make good use of the Bureau. Tell your wives we're going to have a special lot of literature for them on canning and evaporation of fruits and vegetables, raising poultry and dairy work and bees. Tell them to come in and use the room as much as they like. We've provided for their comforts."

"Well, it sounds pretty fine, Mr. White," said Billy Waterson, "especially the loans. I'll be in to see you myself on Sat.u.r.day."

"Yes, come in, Billy, and tell me about your needs," invited the banker. "We'll no doubt be able to help you."

The last of the farmers had scarcely gone when Bob's grandparents came driving up the lane.

"Has any one died, Bob?" asked his grandfather, as soon as he got near enough to be heard.

"Why?" asked Bob smiling.

"Well, I saw many rigs going down the road as we came by the Wallace farm. One or two of them, I thought, came out of our lane."

"No," said Bob, "no one's dead, but," with a wave of his hand toward the newly plowed field, "the old method of plowing with horse flesh pa.s.sed away this afternoon."

"I noticed, Bob, as soon as I came around the bend in the road that the field was plowed, and I was going to ask you about it. How did you get it done so quickly? Were some of the neighbors over here with their teams helping you?"

"No," said Bob, "come here a minute and I'll show you something," and he took his grandfather, who had alighted from the buggy, over to the wagon shed in which the tractor stood.

"Where'd that come from?" asked his grandfather, looking at it curiously. "Has Joe gone and bought a tractor, too?"

"No, not yet," laughed Bob, "but I guess he will when he gets back and sees how much work it can do."

"They must cost a lot of money, Bob," said his grandfather.

"Not as much as you might think," replied Bob, using the phrase he heard Mr. Patterson use in talking to the farmers that afternoon. "Not when you take into account how much they can do."

"I should like to have seen it work," said his grandfather interested.

"Well, you'll see it, all right," said Bob, "because Mr. Patterson's going to plow the other three fields before he leaves."

"How long does he calculate it'll take him to finish, Bob?" inquired his grandfather.

"He expects to get done by noon on Thursday."

"It can't be done," said his grandfather incredulously.

"Well, he says it can," laughed Bob, "and to-morrow morning you'll see."

X

RUNNING WATER

Bob was up bright and early the next morning and had his ch.o.r.es all done by the time Mr. Patterson came back from town, where he had gone the night before for a supply of kerosene.

As soon as breakfast was over the tractor was driven out to the field back of the cider mill, and, with the agent in the seat, started off on its rounds. In this field corn had been raised the year before, and it would be planted in oats this year, so the plow was omitted and the double disk and spike-toothed harrow used. Bob and his grandfather stood for a half hour watching it work, then Bob went to the barn and got out the team and began plowing the garden, which adjoined the field in which the tractor was working.

When they knocked off at noon, the relative amount of work done by each was very apparent, for the ten-acre field was more than half finished in the same time it had taken Bob to finish less than an acre of garden patch, and by six o'clock the entire field was completed.

The next day Bob took charge of the tractor and succeeded in doing almost as well in plowing their west bottom field as Mr. Patterson had done the day before, although it took him until seven o'clock in the evening to finish the entire ten acres.

Thursday morning everything on the farm was excitement. Bob started to clean up the corners of the west field with the plow and team, while Mr. Patterson started plowing the hilly north field, so that everything would be finished by the time Bob's uncle arrived. It seemed to Bob, as he watched the tractor work, that the hilly field was requiring more time to complete than they had figured, for by noon the field was not much more than half done, so he asked Mr. Patterson at dinner if the plow worked slower on hilly ground.

"Of course, Bob, we can't make the time there that we can on the level, but I've been taking it kind of easy, loafing a little this morning so the tractor would be working when your uncle comes home this afternoon."

In this, however, he was disappointed, for the automobile did not arrive until after five o'clock, an hour after the tractor had been run into the barnyard, where the agent left it and drove to town in his auto.

Bob was in the barnyard waiting to greet his aunt and uncle when Henry Smith drove up. His uncle, however, did not wait until they had alighted to ask Bob the question which was uppermost in his mind, but shouted to him as soon as the car swung up the hill into the yard.

"How in the world did you ever get the plowing all done so soon, Bob?"

he called.

Without replying, Bob waved his hand toward the tractor.

"Where'd that come from?" asked his uncle, as he helped his bride from the auto.

"Oh," laughed Bob, as he stepped forward to shake hands with them, "that's another of John White's jokes. He's had nearly everybody in the county out here on the farm while you were away, showing them how easy it is to plow with power."

"Well, Bob, I don't want your Uncle Joe to get married again soon,"

laughed his new aunt, "but it does seem to have been lucky for him this time, for you've certainly got more plowing done while he was away getting married than he'd have gotten if he stayed at home," as, much to Bob's embarra.s.sment, she suddenly bent over and kissed him.

"Things seem to be moving faster on the farm, Bob, since you and your Uncle Joe started working together," she laughed, as they all started for the house.

Bob could not remember any time in his life when he had been quite so happy as he was that night at supper, sitting in silence opposite his new aunt, listening to the story of the wedding and honeymoon. There was something about the frank open smile that she bestowed upon him from time to time which established her in his confidence, and made him feel that the coming summer was going to be a very pleasant one.

He wondered what shape the first suggestion for improvement by his aunt might take, but he didn't have long to wait, for the very next morning at breakfast she turned to her husband and said:

"Have you figured out yet, Joe, how much pipe it will take to bring the water from the spring into the house? I think we should arrange for running water in the kitchen and put in a bathroom, and I have also been thinking that, instead of using the small room beyond the kitchen as a pantry, we could do away with that and fit up a washroom, with a toilet and shower for the men. A farmer is just as much ent.i.tled to a shower after his day's work as a golf player and is even more benefited by its use. We could easily make a cellar under it for the hot-water heater and supply hot water to the kitchen, washroom and the bathroom on the second floor, as well as the laundry. I've been looking up the cost of plumbing and don't think the whole thing would cost more than five or six hundred dollars, exclusive of digging the trench."

When his aunt began to speak, Bob scanned the face of his uncle, and he noticed that while his uncle smiled and said he would have to look into the matter, Bob noticed his brow contract in a way that spoke ill of the project being carried out--at least at the present time.

Now that the plowing had been done, it was decided that they would spend a few days in cleaning out the fence rows and repairing fences, and as they were leaving for this work shortly after breakfast, Bob made a discovery. His aunt came into the woodshed where they were getting out their mattocks and brush hooks and said: