Billy asked for work, at first, indiscriminately, later, only at the larger farms. The unvarying reply was that there was no work. A few said there would be plowing after the first rains. Here and there, in a small way, dry plowing was going on. But in the main the farmers were waiting.
“But do you know how to plow?” Saxon asked Billy.
“No; but I guess it ain't much of a trick to turn. Besides, next man I see plowing I'm goin' to get a lesson from.”
In the mid-afternoon of the second day his opportunity came. He climbed on top of the fence of a small field and watched an old man plow round and round it.
“Aw, shucks, just as easy as easy,” Billy commented scornfully. “If an old codger like that can handle one plow, I can handle two.”
“Go on and try it,” Saxon urged.
“What's the good?”
“Cold feet,” she jeered, but with a smiling face. “All you have to do is ask him. All he can do is say no. And what if he does? You faced the Chicago Terror twenty rounds without flinching.”
“Aw, but it's different,” he demurred, then dropped to the ground inside the fence. “Two to one the old geezer turns me down.”
“No, he won't. Just tell him you want to learn, and ask him if he'll let you drive around a few times. Tell him it won't cost him anything.”