“Yes,” said Mr. Bryant, as he filled Younkins’s tin cup with hot coffee, “our boys have all got the knack of making themselves at home,––runs in 109 the blood, I guess,––and if you come over here again in a day or two, you will probably find us with rugs on the floor and pictures on the walls. Sandy is a master-hand at hunting; and he intends to get a dozen buffalo-skins out of hand, so to speak, right away.” And he looked fondly at his freckled nephew as he spoke.
“A dibble and a corn-dropper will be more in his way than the rifle, for some weeks to come,” said Mr. Howell.
“What’s a dibble?” asked both of the youngsters at once.
The elder man smiled and looked at Younkins as he said, “A dibble, my lambs, is an instrument for the planting of corn. With it in one hand you punch a hole in the sod that has been turned over, and then, with the other hand, you drop in three or four grains of corn from the corn-dropper, cover it with your heel, and there you are,––planted.”
“Why, I supposed we were going to plant corn with a hoe; and we’ve got the hoes, too!” cried Oscar.
“No, my son,” said his father; “if we were to plant corn with a hoe, we shouldn’t get through planting before next fall, I am afraid. After dinner, we will make some dibbles for you boys, for you must begin to drop corn to-morrow. What ploughing we have done to-day, you can easily catch up with when you begin. And the three of you can all be on the furrow at once, if that seems worth while.” 110
The boys very soon understood fully what a dibble was, and what a corn-dropper was, strange though those implements were to them at first. Before the end of planting-time, they fervently wished they had never seen either of these instruments of the corn-planter.
With the aid of a few rude tools, there was fashioned a staff from the tough hickory that grew near at hand, the lower part of the stick being thick and pointed at the end. The staff was about as high as would come up to a boy’s shoulder, so that as he grasped it near the upper end, his arm being bent, the lower end was on the ground.
The upper end was whittled so as to make a convenient handle for the user. The lower end was shaped carefully into something like the convex sides of two spoons put together by their bowls, and the lower edge of this part was shaved down to a sharpness that was increased by slightly hardening it in the fire. Just above the thickest part of the dibble, a hole was bored at right angles through the wood, and into this a peg was driven so that several inches stuck out on both sides of the instrument. This completed the dibble.
“So that is a dibble, is it?” said Oscar, when the first one was shown him. “A dibble. Now let’s see how you use it.”