"Taking it for granted that you receive $25 a month for every month of the year (and this is admitting too much), you waste more than half on that blessed rig, and you can make no provision for the future, for sickness, or for old age. No, I will not keep your horse, nor will I employ any man whose scheme of life doesn't run further than the ownership of a horse and buggy."
"But a fellow must keep up with the procession; he must have some recreation, and all the men around here have rigs."
"Not around Four Oaks. Recreation is all right, but find it in ways less expensive. Read, study, cultivate the best of your kind, plan for the future and save for it, and you will not lack for recreation. Sell your horse and buggy for $200, if you cannot get more, put the money at interest, save $200 out of your wages, and by the end of the year you will be worth over $400 in hard cash and much more in self-respect. You can easily add 1200 a year to your savings, without missing anything worth while; and it will not be long before you can buy a farm, marry a wife, and make an independent position. I will have no horse-and-buggy men on my farm. It's up to you."
"By Jove! I believe you may be right. It looks like a square deal, and I'll play it, if you'll give me time to sell the outfit."
"All right, come when you can. I'll find the work."
That day being Saturday, I told Thompson that I would come out early Monday morning, bringing with me a rough map of the place as I had planned it, and we would go over it with a chain and drive some outlining stakes. I then returned to Exeter, found the carpenter and the plumber, and accepted their estimates,—$630 and $325, respectively. The farm-house moved, finished, furnished, and heated, but not painted or papered, would cost $2630. Painting, papering, window-shades, and odds and ends cost $275, making a total of $2905. It proved a good investment, for it was a comfortable and convenient home for the men and women who afterward occupied it. It has certainly been appreciated by its occupants, and few have left it without regret. We have always tried to make it an object lesson of cleanliness and cheerfulness, and I don't think a man has lived in it for six months without being bettered. It seemed a good deal of money to put on an old farm-house for farm-hands, but it proved one of the best investments at Four Oaks, for it kept the men contented and cheerful workers.
CHAPTER VIII
WE PLAT THE FARM
On Monday I was out by ten o'clock, armed with a surveyor's chain. Thompson had provided a lot of stakes, and we ran the lines, more or less straight, in general accord with my sketch plan. We walked, measured, estimated, and drove stakes until noon. At one o'clock we were at it again, and by four I was fit to drop from fatigue. Farm work was new to me, and I was soft as soft. I had, however, got the general lay of the land, and could, by the help of the plan, talk of its future subdivisions by numerals,—an arrangement that afterward proved definite and convenient. We adjourned to the shade of the big black oak on the knoll, and discussed the work in hand.