“Mother, I am old enough to understand my duty. I wanted to go to the College very, very much; but now I know that it is impossible. We must meet adversity, and meet it bravely.”
Her only answer was to embrace the boy who was acquiring manliness at such a rapid rate.
The school question for the term having been settled, the next question was to consider what steps could be taken to increase their very small income. The subject having been opened, was discussed at various times during the next two weeks. There was a twenty acre farm adjoining the little home of the Harkins. It came up against the little vegetable garden which Mr. Harkins had cultivated with care and profit during his lifetime. The tenant of the large tract had been unfortunate, and he was anxious to sub-let his lease for a very modest sum of money. Herbert consulted with Mr. Coke, the lawyer, regarding the matter, and after some days it was decided to purchase the lease, which had about two years to run.
The first step in the new life was the engaging of a farmhand to do the heavy work on the twenty acre tract. A reliable, industrious man was secured for a very reasonable amount of wages; but with the understanding that he would be kept for at least two years. The work was begun under pleasant auspices. After it had proceeded a few weeks, it was decided that Herbert should get as much schooling as he could in the meantime. It must be admitted that he attended school rather irregularly during this period. It was at this time of his life that he learned in a manner never to be forgotten that this is a world of hard work. Often he got out of bed before dawn in order to ride the horse to plough among the growing corn, potatoes and hops. The program was to get as much ploughed by ten o’clock in the morning as could be hoed during the remainder of that day. After this Herbert would start for school, where he sometimes arrived as the afternoon session was half through. In winter his work was lighter, but the snow was often deep and drifted. The cold was intense, the north wind piercing and his clothing so thin that he felt real discomfort.
At night, when his work was over and he had a spare hour, he made it a habit to study the art of debating. The first book he ever owned was the “Columbian Orator,” which was given to him by his uncle one winter as he lay very sick with the measles. In the natural order of things Herbert soon became recognized as the head of the house, and his mother leaned on him for advice and accepted his decisions without question. At the end of the first year, when Herbert balanced his carefully kept accounts, he found that they had come out just even. It was a little bit discouraging to find that they had made no profit from their hard work; but it was a real consolation to know that there had been no further drain upon the small amount of money which Mrs. Harkins had laid aside from her husband’s insurance policy.
At the beginning of the second year of farming, Herbert learned to his amazement that the man from whom they had purchased the unexpired lease owed money to a number of tradesmen for implements and supplies. These men came to him and demanded the payment of their claims; but he was neither able nor willing to satisfy them. Herbert and his man had finished their summer tilling and their haying when a heavy rain set in near the end of August. The dreary character of the weather seemed to fill him with a foreboding of approaching calamity. One night Mr. Coke came to him with tidings that their ill fortune was about to culminate. The following morning the sheriff and some other officials, with two or three of the principal creditors, appeared and after formally demanding payment of their claims, proceeded to levy on the farm stock, implements, household effects and other worldly possessions, coupled with a threat of arrest and imprisonment for the original tenant who was invisible for some days.
Herbert and his mother stopped with a friendly neighbor while the work of levying went on. In the meantime Mr. Coke had not been idle. He denounced the proceedings as an outrage, saying that it was wrong both in law and morals to hold Herbert and his mother responsible for the faults or crimes of another. He did more than protest, however. He acted and acted promptly. He went into court, explained the matter very clearly to the Judge, and succeeded in obtaining an order by which the levy was stopped. Herbert and his mother immediately resumed their old life; but at the end of the year both decided that it would be advisable to quit farming, which in their circumstances offered little return for the hard labor involved.
The hired man, who had proven himself to be an unusually efficient and industrious man, still had two months of his time to run. He generously offered to release Herbert from this obligation; but the boy had inherited his father’s trait of pluck and manliness, declined to accept the offer. He had heard that one of the merchants in the town who had purchased a large amount of ground on the other side of the railroad, was anxious to have someone undertake the job of clearing up fifty acres of the wildest land. Herbert informed his assistant of that fact, and said that if he was willing to undertake the work he would guarantee to give him all that they had contracted to pay in the beginning. It was in November, and when the man and boy started to work the snow was just going and the water and slush in some places were knee deep.
Both were resolute, but they were indifferent choppers compared with those who usually grapple with forests, and the job looked so formidable that farmers and others passing along the turnpike were accustomed to halt and predict that Herbert would be a grown man before he saw the end of the job. But his fighting blood was up and he determined to plod along without rest until the work was accomplished. So they continued cutting trees and bushes, chopping up grown trunks into small lengths, digging out rotten pines from the soil where they had imbedded themselves, burning the brush and worthless sticks, and carting home such wood as served for fuel. So they persevered until the job was finally completed. Herbert received $200 for the work; and after paying the hired man the $60 that was his due he had $140 left to put in the family fund. There was still a balance to their credit. Herbert was very glad the work was finished. At times he felt that he would give way under the strain, but pluckily refused to do so. Frequently at night the sharp lances of the Canadian thistles had to be dug out of his festered feet with needles; but he had the stuff in him of which successful men are made. However, two years of this sort of toil were sufficient, and at the end of that time he cheerfully marked “the end” at the conclusion of his experience at farming.