Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1875 — THE BORROWED TOOLS. [ARTICLE]

THE BORROWED TOOLS.

A Sketch for Farmers. Samuel Thompson and Nathan Holmes were both of them farmers, and they were also near neighbors. Their land was situated upon a beautiful ridge, and was strong and productive. In the natural capacity of the soil there was not a cent’s worth of difference in the two farms, but yet they bore a very dissimilar aspect after they had been worked a number of years. Mr. Thompson’s buildings looked neat and tidy. His dooryard was clean, his windows were whole, his barn was snug and warm, his orchard looked thrifty, and the trees were carefully dressed and pruned. Now Mr. Holmes had no more of a family to support than his neighbor, but yet his house and out-buildings and the rural aspect of his farm were very different. A. few rags were to be seen in spots where should have been panes of glass; various things were kicking about in the yard that should have been in other places; there were large cracks in his barn, through which the rain and snow sometimes beat; his apple trees were scabbed With old bark, and the tops were disfigured by scraggy, dead limbs. Mr. Holmes worked hard—harder, if anything, than did Mr. Thompson; but yet his matters were always at loose ends, and he often wondered how it was that his neighbor pushed things along so smoothly and kept everything in such excellent order. “ Ah, Thompson,” said Holmes, one day in early spring, as he came up to the door of the former, “have you got an inch auger?” “Certainly,” returned Thompson; “I couldn’t get along on a farm without one.” “ I wish you would lend it to me a little while. I have delayed sowing my grain two days because my harrow is broken and I had no tools with which to mend it." “ I will lend it to you with pleasure," said Thompson. And then, as a sudden thought seemed to strike him, he added: “They tell me, Mr. Holmes, that you lost one of your cows yesterday.” “Yes,” returned Holmes, with an uneasy look, “one of the best cows I had.” “ How did it happen?” “ She broke her leg.” “ Broke her leg? How, pray!” “ Why, you see the floor in my tie-up had got rather worn and shaky, and night before last she got one of her legs through it and snapped the bone off like a pipestem, so I had to kill her.” “Ah, Mr. Holmes, those are things we farmers ought to guard against. A very little labor at the proper time would have saved all that."

“ I know it,” said Mr. Holmes, with a downcast look;-” snd I should have fixed the floor long ago if I had had the tools. But it’s no use in crying now. What’s done can’t be helped.” That was always a source of great consolation to Mr. Holmes. When a thing was done he tried to feel satisfied with the reflection that it could not be undone, though he seldom laid up the experience for future use. Mr. Thompson turned toward the shed door and led the way up into a neat, light chamber, and Holmes followed. Here was a stout bench, all fixed for handy use, and upon it were a full set of planes, saws, gauges, mallets, etc., while in a small rack against the partition were arranged a set of chisels, gimlets, files and screw-driv-ers, and overhead hung some half-dozen different-sized augers. In short, there was everything that a man could possibly need m building and repairing about a house. Mr. Thompson took down an inch auger and handed it to his neighbor, and as he did so he remarked: “I haven’t seen your Son Thomas about for two or three davs. Is he sick?” “ Well, not exactly sick, but he’s got a very bad foot —he can’t step on it.” “ Ah, how did it happen?” “He trod on an old rusty nail in the barn floor and it went into his foot some.ways.” : W-b-e-w! that’s bad,” uttered Thompson, with a sympathetic shudder. “ I never allow my boys to go around much barefooted. I have found that the pricks and bruises generally cost more than the shoe-leather r aside from the comfort and looks.” \ ' “ Oh, Thomas wasn’t barefooted, but you see there was a hole in the bottom of his shoe. I meant to have carried it down to the village and have it mended, but I forgot it.” I “Ah, friend Holmes, I save all such difficulties as that I always keep a little leather by me( and then when there is a little tapping or patching to be done I can fix it up in a few minutes. All these things can be ( done during rainy days, when I might Otherwise be lying idle.” Well,” returned Mr. Holmes, “ I suppose I might cobble a shoe' well enough if I only had the tools; but it takes quite a collection of implements to fill up a cobbler’s bench. However, whai’s done can’t be helped. I guess Tom’ll be out in a day or two. But I must hurry off now and fix my harrow.”

It took Mr. Holmes nearly all day to mjend his harrow, so that he had to postpone the harrowing of his land till the next morning, and when he at length got his grain into the ground he was just five days behind his neighbor Thompson. His son was confined to the house over a week, and during that time he had to hire an extra hand, which cost him about four dollars besides the doctor’s bills he had to pay. When it came haying time he had to buy new raises, because the old ones had gone to rack and ruin. Perhaps they had started with the loss of a few teeth or the breaking of a bow, or, perhaps even the head might have got broken, and thus, instead of saving a good handle, etc., and making the other parts that were needed, for the want of tools he was obliged to buy new rakes entire. So in all the departments of his business he was constantly meeting obstacles that retarded his progress* and all for the want of a few simple tools. One rainy day in the fall, after the harvest was completed, Mr. Thompson was in his tool-chamber making some apple boxes when his neighbor Holmes entered. “Thompson," said the atter how much did that ox-sled of yours cost? I have got to have me one this winter.” “Oh, that cost me nothing. I made it myself during some of those rainy days that we had just before harvesting. I got the timber out when I hauled my wood last winter, so the job came quite easy.” “ Well, Neighbor Thompson,” said Holmes, after some little time spent in hard study, “ I don’t see how it is that you get along so. Your farm don’t produce any more than mine does, and I’m sure you don’t work so hard as I do. Your wife don’t make better butter or cheese than mine does, your sheep don’t bear better wool, your bees don’t make better honey. You raise more fruit than I do, to be sure.” “But I have no more trees,” said Thompson. “No—but your fruit is of better quality, and finds a more ready market.” “Certainly—because I have grafted the best species. My trees were the . same as yours twelve years ago; and with regard to other matters, I think if you Will look about the two places you will find that in many respects mine is the most productive. My cows give more milk than yours do through the winter because they have better shed room and a warmer barn. I raise more pork than you do because my pensand pig-houses are tight and comfortable; and then I am inclined to think that my bees make rather more honey than yours do, for my hives are in better order. I may not raise more corn than you do, but I guess the rats and squirrels don’t have such an easy entrance to my grainchambers as they do to yours." “Perhaps you are right,” muttered Holmes, with a crest-fallen look; “ and I suppose you are laying by money.” “ Certainly I am—one or two hundred dollars every year.” “So much as that?" uttered Holmes, with a look of surprise. “ Why, I can’t lay up a cent.” “ Let me give you a bit of a secret," said Thompson, in a kind, neighborly tone, as he laid his plane upon the bench. “ Last summer you bought four hew rakes, and a pitchfork. Now how much did they cost you?" “ Let’s see: The rakes were twenty-five cents apiece, and the fork came to a dollar.”

“ Well, now my fork handle got broken accidentally last winter, and so did some of the rakes; but I immediately took such darts as were good and brought them up here, and then at my first leisure opportunity I fixed them up. There are two dollars saved.. Now you have nothing to do to-day.” “ No, it rains too hard.” “And you see I am at work. Now, how are you going to get your apple boxes?” “Marston is going to make them for me, and I am to give him a barrel of good apples.” “ There are two dollars more. Now if you hire a sled made as good as mine it will cost you twelve dollars. That will be sixteen dollars that I have laid up, while you have been able to do Now let us see how that sixteen dollars will multiply itself. You sold your wool last spring as soon as you had sheared your sheep?” “Yes —I had to, for I needed the money.” “ And howmuch did you get?” “ Thirty cents a pound.” “If you had had sixteen dollars by you in ready cash you wouldn’t have been obliged to have sold then?” “ No,” returned Holmes, whose eyes were beginning to open. “I could have squeezed along with that sum.” “Now,” continued Thompson, “I sold my wool yesterday, and they sent to my door and took it. I got forty-two cents a pound for it. I had 175 pounds, and by reckoning it over after I had sold it I found that I had made just twenty-one dollars; that is, I had obtained twelve cents more on a pound than I should if I had been obliged to have sold when you did. So you see how these little things multiply themselves.” “ And all this comes of your having tools to work with,” said Holmes, in a sort of subdued tone. “Mostly,” returned Thompson. “ Well, if I had tools I might save a good many small sums in the course of the year, but I never have the money to spare for them. Why, the tools you have here and m the house, over and above your farming utensils, must be worth fifty dollars.” “Just about that sum.” “ Then I fear I shall have to scrape along with borrowed tools. I can never spare any such sum as that.” “ You don’t understand the secret, Mr. Holmes. Let me explain. I never should have gone with a fifty-doll ar bill and bought tools, but I have collected them gradually. I have bought every tool I have on the premises with my grog-money,” “ Grog-money!” reiterated Holmes, in blank surprise. “Yes,” returned Thompson with a slight smile, “ with my grog-money. Now I am not going to give you a temperance lecture, for you are as well able to judge for yourself as I ahi; but I am going to

give you a little principle of economy, and show you its consequent comfort, content and happiness. The first year I was on the farm I used occasionally to take a little spirit, and whenever I would go to the village, which was usually twice a week, I would drink two or three times. I know not that I experienced any bad effects from it, but I am confident it did me no good, and that it was a habit that might grow to a big evil. As near as I could calculate the spirit I had used cost me on an average twenty-five cents a week. I suppose it costs you that now.” “Yes, every cent of it.” “ Well, I commenced on the first day of January to lay up my grog-money, and with that disposition came a peculiar desire to commence saving in other ways, and I soon found the means of stopping Up more gaps iu my financial affairs. I saw how much might be saved if I could only do some of the work that I was then obliged to pay for, and to this end I commended buying such tools as I thought would come most handy. At the end of the first year I found myself the owner of thirteen dollars’ worth of tools, and it had all come from the money I might otherwise have drank up. I felt stronger and heartier than I did the year before, and I felt much happier, for I knew that I was laying the foundation for future good. Time passed on, and my twenty-five cents a week kept coming in. It was now a saw, then a hammer, then another plane, then a new auger, then a bit-stock and bits, until, in eleven years, I have not only collected an excellent variety of tools, but I have drawn directly from my grog-fund nearly a hundred dollars in cash besides; but the value of my tools cannot be estimated in money, as I have already shown you. They are not only a source of great profit, but they are also a source of an incalculable degree of comfort. A small gap in a man’s business affairs may seem a trifling thing at first, but it is like a little hole in the bank that confines the high waters of a lake. The almost insignificant stream will be sure to grow frightfully larger, and unless soon stopped up the pure waters of the lake will ere long lose themselves in the neighboring streams. I believe, my friend, that in giving up my grog I have not sacrificed one single comfort. Now don’t you think you would feel full as well without it? Compare the profits of your grog-money |yith the products of mine.”

Mr. Holmes made no answer, but he poked deep down into the shavings with his feet, as though he expected to find an idea there. “ Thompson,” he said at length, “ I wish you had explained this to me years ago.” “ I was afraid it might offend you, for to touch upon a man’s private affairs is at best a delicate matter.” 1 “ I know it —but Nathan Holmes is not the man to be offended with his friend for kind admonition and instruction.” “ Well” said Thompson with a look of extreme gratification, “ it is not too late now to commence, and if you have an opportunity to take advantage of the market, and if fifty dollars or so would be of any use to you, I will lend it to you with pleasure.” Mr. Holmes thanked his friend with moistened eyes, and shortly afterward he went to his home. The next day he went to the village, but instead of bringing home his little brown jug he brought home an auger, and he felt really proud when he found himself at work with one of his own tools. The winter passed away, and when spring came Holmes found himself the owner of six dollars’ worth of tools, and rail from the money that he would have worse than wasted had he not bought them. But this thing operated in many ways for good. Now that he had the ability to fix up his buildings without borrowing tools he began to take a degree of pride in them that he had never felt before. He built racks and stands for his farming utensils, reset his windows, fixed up his bee-hives and roofed them over, tightened his barn, and during the rainy days he found himself with plenty of useful and profitable work to k do. His children never wear worthless shoes now nor do his cows break through the barn floor, but he is a happy, thriving, contented farmer. His cows give as much milk, his bees make as much honey, his trees yield as many and as good apples, his chambers hold as much grain, and he gets as much money for his wool as does his neighbor Thompson, and all this is because he stopped his grog and bought his own tools and left off depending upon his neighbors for what he ought to do for himself.—Austin C Burdick, in Ohio Farmer.