Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/538



There were three of us — my brother, Isaac, my son, Aubrey, and myself, who called on John the morning before Easter in 1913. He came into the room after a short delay, wearing a rough woolen jacket with bone buttons.

“John, have you been in bed taking a nap?” I inquired.

“Ven I sleeps in de tay-time, I sleeps in de parn,” was the answer.

We drifted to the profits of farming at the suggestion of Isaac.

“Your brodder and I, ve bose varms de same vay and ve bose knows how ve make out. Ach, it all depends, somedimes ve gets a goot feller to vork and somedimes it is de udder vay. I vonce had a feller and ven he came to me he had nodding — maybe a year's vages. I nefer had to dell him vat to do. He chust do it. He looks out vor me and vor himself too. Ach, he got along. Ven I vants to gif him somesing he say no, but I makes it up to him some udder vay. Ven he goes avay he had fifteen huntert tollars. He vas de right kind, but dere is no more now like he vas.” “How long did he work for you, John?”

“Nineteen years.” Then he changed the topic.

"Isaac, you are chust like my Uncle Sam. He vas a tall, slim feller and vas a creat man to valk. He valked eferyvheres arount the gountry. Vy, he vould valk five miles. He said he nefer liked to ride in a vaggon pecause it made him so tired.

July 8, 1913. We were sitting, my Brother James and I, on the green in the shade of a hickory tree (pignut) whose spreading and graceful branches swung far out in search of air, when John came driving along. In the field beyond, the farmers loaded the timothy hay on to the wagon.

“Vy don't you fellers get up and go to vork?” was his greeting.

And then he told us of the time when his grandfather, 518