[They Ain't Been Brought Up Right]

{Begin page}[Mr. Dunnell charged his black pipe thoughtfully and seated himself on a sawhorse that served as a bench in his coal, grain, fertilizer and oil office down by the railroad tracks.

"You saw that? he asked.?] "Every young feller I've hired acts just like that when you try to tell them anything. Dunno whether it's true in other towns or not. I don't expect a young feller to know everything when I hire him. They's a lot of tricks to handling {Begin deleted text}these heavy bags{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}sacks of grain{End handwritten}{End inserted text} and coal chutes and things. A feller can tucker his self all out doing things they's an easier way to do. I try to tell 'em and they act insulted. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} It don't make so much difference what they do around here, even though they don't use their heads at all but just go at everything hind end first. They'll learn in time. But I do get mad when they don't do as I tell 'em {Begin deleted text}at{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}for{End handwritten}{End inserted text} my customers. When I was a boy and worked out, I felt I was obliged to do as my boss said. {Begin deleted text}If I didn't like what he said I suppose I could get another boss, and these fellers can't. But that shouldn't mean they didn't need to use their heads.{End deleted text} {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} I like to have them deliver the grain and feed where the customer wants it. I tell the boys so. And I explain to them that the customer isn't always {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} round, so they should use their heads and put the bags where they'll be handy for the customer, in case they don't know where he keeps his feed -- as any fool ought to be able to find out. But do they do it? I guess not. Seems like they tear out to the place with {Begin page no. 2}the truck and when nobody sees them they upend the truck and dump the bags in the first place they see {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} then tear away agin. I hear more hollering from customers over that than over anything else. Man comes back from somewheres, maybe late at night, and can't get into his barn without moving a mess of heavy grain bags. Maybe in his best clothes, too. If he'd-a been willing to move 'em in the first place {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} he'd-a bought 'em at a chain store a little cheaper than I can sell. But be figures it's worth the extry to have the bags lugged for him. That's how I stay in business; and how the young fellers have a job with me. But they don't think of that. They don't like to carry the heavy bags on their shoulders, and think if they can get out of it they are coming out ahead. The way to get a steady job and keep it isn't to see how much work you can get out of {Begin deleted text}that the boss told you to do.{End deleted text} The young people don't know that. They ain't been brought up right. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Talk about leaving things where they don't belong. Some of them never leave anything at all. And that's dum near as bad. I sent a young feller over the river with a load of coal. He come back with the load. Said the folks weren't to home. Was the cellar winder fastened? He didn't know. Did you ask some of the neighbors where they was? He hadn't thought of that. Well, you take that load right back and you deliver it somehow. It's going to be a cold night and {Begin page no. 3}those folks will want their coal. He went back, and it seems that the woman was in the house all the time. The young feller had been so careful not to disturb nobody that she hadn't heard him. And only saw him when he was leaving with the coal. She yelled as loud as she could, but he didn't hear her. She said he drove that truck awful fast. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Another time I sent young Stebbins {Begin deleted text},{End deleted text} [md]you know him {Begin deleted text},{End deleted text} [md] across the river up the other way with half a ton of coal. Half a ton, mind yer, just a little jag, and it's three four miles over there and same distance back. But they was snow on the ground, the driveway hadn't been shovelled {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} and he couldn't back in. Just the {Begin deleted text}[wimmen?]{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}women{End handwritten}{End inserted text} folks to home. 'Course I knew the place. Couldn't back in? Why the house sits dum near in the road. Didn't you have a shovel? Yes, he had. Couldn't you shovel just those few feet so's you could back in? Well, he never thought of it. Couldn't you have gone across the street to Buffam's store and borrowed one of their old baskets and carried that little jag in? Well, he never thought of it. So you come back here with it? Suppose you think I'll tell you to never mind, we'll just dump the little load back in the bunkers and forget all about it, and just let 'em freeze over there? Heh! I had to laugh. He says, says he, {Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten} Miss Merriman stopped me just now and says she wants a half ton of coal {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text}.{Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten}{End inserted text} Oh she did, did she? I says. And there she was right in {Begin page no. 4}front of her house, and there you was with a half ton of coal on your truck that you couldn't get rid of. Now, why didn't you deliver it to her? I says. Well, he didn't think of it! {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Now, I'll tell you how we done when I was younger. ['Course?] those were the hoss and buggy days and we couldn't go joy riding with a coupla tons of coal at fifty miles an hour. But we managed to make deliveries somehow. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Paul Breinig lived on that estate just beyond Wanamaker Pond, on the hill to the right. He used coal for cooking, and he'd told me that he wanted some coal as soon as I could get it to him. I loaded up right away and started off with the hosses. When I got to the foot of 'Chog Hill {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} I met Breinig and his whole family in their automobile, which was a novelty in them days. He didn't stop or holler anything so I kept on going, figuring that he was just going to the post office, or somewheres, and would be right back. I come to his place and waited a while but he didn't come. I tried the doors and they was all locked, except one where the screen door was fastened but I could see that the inside door wan't. I went to a barbed wire fence across the road and twisted off a piece of wire. I made a hook on one end and fed it careful through the screen. Finally, I got hold of the hook on the door and unlocked it. Then I went in and opened up to suit myself and basketed {Begin page no. 5}in the coal. After I got it in I waited a while for Breinig to come back. But he didn't come. And I got scairt that he had gone away somewheres for the night. And didn't want to leave the door unlocked, so I got out the wire and after a few tries I managed to hook the screen again, And so I come away. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Breinig come down the next morning to pay me. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Dunnell {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text}, he said, " {Begin deleted text}How{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}how{End handwritten}{End inserted text} the hell did you get that coal in? The doors was all locked. And they was locked when I got back. But the coal was there. How'd you do it?

"Mister," I says, {Begin deleted text}says I,{End deleted text} "I can get into any gol dummed house in this town. I know 'em all. And I know how to get in. Nobody can keep me out - not if you've ordered something from me. You can lock your house up as tight as you want. But if you order coal, I'll get that coal in - right in the bin where you want it! {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}["?]{End handwritten}{End inserted text} {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} But he teased so hard, and I could see it worried him. He [want?] quite right in his head, you know, so I told him how it was done. But there you are, would one of these young fellers think of that? I guess not. They'da come back with the load 'cause the folks {Begin deleted text}wan't{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}wa'n't{End handwritten}{End inserted text} to home. And that's one reason why small business men are disappearing. These young fellers wasn't brought up right to make small business men. {Begin deleted text}[Good thing?] you{End deleted text} You say {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}there are{End handwritten}{End inserted text} too many small business men now sitting in the middle of the road? Let me tell you, son, that this town would {Begin page no. 6}]be a dum sight better off if we had some business here that would keep fifty or seventy-five men busy winters, [if these young fellers would start making things the way they used to when I was a boy!?] {Begin deleted text}[?] Maybe{End deleted text} I {Begin deleted text}[?]{End deleted text} mean 'small manufacturer'. I always thought that that was what they was talking about in Washington when they said, {Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten} small business man. {Begin handwritten}"{End handwritten} {Begin deleted text}Business man is just [??boy?{End deleted text} {Begin deleted text}Don't make nothing? Oh, we{End deleted text} We don't need nobody trained up to do any trading. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} I know that when I was a boy I used to braid hats. Straw hats, you know. Every town most had one feller who was a hatter. I got a cent for every hat crown I braided. And when I got up to two dollars and a half I could have a pair of shoes made by what I've been calling a small business man. They wa'n't like the kind the kids have now. They was really leather boots. And sometimes they had capper toes. And the real fancy ones had a little bit of red leather set in 'em. All kids have to do now when they want a pair of shoes is to holler. In those days we had to earn 'em. And believe me, we took care of 'em, too. Kept 'em greased and put away neat. We didn't wear 'em more'n we had to. Went barefoot mostly. My feet got so tough that I could walk right on thistles and not feel 'em. {Begin deleted text}Believe that is a good thing.{End deleted text} Even today I ain't got a corn, nor a bunion, nor a broken arch nor nothing. Feet's as good as they ever was.

{Begin page no. 7}{Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Oh it ain't the kid's fault. They ain't brought up right. And a lot of it is this dum machinery. That's what chased the fellers out that used to hire the kids and train 'em. You just watch now, it won't be long before they ain't no small farmers either. All the farming that is done will be done by rich fellers, or by companies. I tell yer, the small farmer can't afford to put in the milk coolers and the milk rooms and aluminum-paint his barns and everything like the government tells him he must do else he can't sell his milk. And the same with everything else he raises. {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}'{End handwritten}{End inserted text} Most as bad as taxes. He pays taxes to hire government fellers to come {Begin deleted text}'{End deleted text} round and tell him he can't do something to make money enough to pay his next taxes. All the way he can get out of spending the little money he has is to stop farming. You hear 'em hollerin' about settling people on the land. Why the hell don't they fix it so's those that's on the land now can stay there? {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Not that they do stay there much {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} though. Try to see any farmer and you'll find he ain't to home. Gone off riding in his automobile. Him and his whole {Begin deleted text}damned{End deleted text} {Begin handwritten}dum{End handwritten} family. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} When I run a farm we didn't have no automobiles to go riding in. 'Course we had a carriage hoss or two and went to market once a week like everybody else. But we got our hoeing all done before the week was higher'n the crops, by {Begin deleted text}G-{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}God{End handwritten}{End inserted text}, and before it was time to hay.

{Begin page no. 8}We got our hay in prompt, too, and started the next job. Didn't let the haying {Begin deleted text}?{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}go, till{End handwritten}{End inserted text} after snowfly. They holler about how they can't hire no help. We couldn't hire none either. Nobody would work for money. Oh no, nobody would take any money for what they did. They just traded work. Your neighbor would help you get in the hay, and then you went and helped him. There wasn't all this stuff or figuring out if you {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}/{End handwritten}{End inserted text} was getting a proper return on your farm investment, what your overhead was and what your time was worth; such as the agricultural colleges teach now days. {Begin note}{Begin handwritten}go (?) till{End handwritten}{End note}{Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Guess they must teach 'em to leave their machinery out in the field all winter, for so many of 'em does it. I always put what little machinery I had under cover and looked after it the way I was trained to look after my boots. But these college farmers don't. Let the machinery all go to hell and then buy more. {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}No{End handwritten}{End inserted text} [/Wonder?] {Begin deleted text}why{End deleted text} they can't show a profit on their farms all the time they are riding around in their automobiles. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Leon Alexander graduated from State College. He'd inherited that big farm just this side the state line - guess maybe some of the farm was over in New Hampshire, too. Well, he got most all the kinds of farm machinery they was in the world. Got a job as agent, too. He had the first manure spreader I ever see. Kept it down under the barn where the manure could be pushed through the floor {Begin page no. 9}right into it. That was an efficiency method he had learned at State. Well sir, a man wanted to buy a manure spreader and he heard about Leon being the agent and having one, so he went up to see Leon. Oh yes, Leon had one and he explained to the man all about it and how much it cost, and the efficient way of filling it. The man was real interested and wanted to see it. Leon took him out {Begin deleted text}'{End deleted text} round the barn - he hadn't been there himself for some time - and showed him where the spreader was. Lucky he come along or the man never woulda found it. The thing was all covered up with manure so deep that only the end of the pole was showing! Leon got the idea of how to fill her up all right. He just didn't think to take her out and spread the manure on the fields now and then. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Leon was a funny feller. He dropped dead over in Greenfield. Should think he would. All he ever did was eat - never took no exercise. Farming didn't give it to him. Not the way he farmed. He was quite a church feller. Sang in the choir and never smoked, nor drank, nor nothing. I went to a church supper once and he was there. Never went again. It made me sick. I did go to a supper at Masonic Hall one time the Masons was giving a public installation and Darby invited me to come, when he was the head one. There was Leon Alexander and Frank Montague and Frank Williams and Charlie Stearns and a lot of those Mt. Hermon professors - all the same thing.

{Begin page no. 10}Pass 'em a dish of mashed potatoes and they'd scoop half of it off on to their plates. Then they'd take a couple a pieces of meat - enough for a small family - and a {Begin deleted text}dam{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}damn{End handwritten}{End inserted text} good helping of everything else they was in sight, and never say nothing. Just sit there hunched over their plates {Begin deleted text}shovelling{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}shoveling{End inserted text} it in. And then by {Begin deleted text}G-{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}God{End handwritten}{End inserted text}, yell for more! I never see such a passel of hogs in my life! My stomach never bothers me. I guess I can eat anything - plenty of exercise in the grain and coal busines. But I'd be ashamed to eat the way those fellers do. And look at the bellies on 'em. They all walk as if they was carrying bass drums. Probably Old Moody started it. He had a big belly, you know. Wouldn't never touch a mite of liquor, but he sure did shovel in the food. Guess he skipped that place in Scripture where it says to be temperate in all things. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} Well, Leon would get up in the morning and help his man milk the cows. He was selling milk to a boy's camp up on the Ridge. Then he'd take the milk to the camp and stay there for breakfast, 'cause it didn't cost him anything. He'd get back about nine o'clock, maybe, and then he'd fool around and get out {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}to{End handwritten}{End inserted text} the field about eleven. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} One year he hired me to cut grass on that big field of his east of the road. There {Begin deleted text}wan't{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}[wasn't?]{End handwritten}{End inserted text} no houses there then. 'Course I come bright and early to do what I could in the cool of the morning. I had a good pair of hosses, but they wan't fast walkers. When Leon {Begin page no. 11}come he showed up with a hoss that, by {Begin deleted text}G-{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}God{End handwritten}{End inserted text}, couldn't walk two miles an hour. Darned old plug, all right for a plough, maybe. But Leon had him on the rake. Light job, you know {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten},{End handwritten}{End inserted text} where we generally put our good carriage hosses. Darned if I couldn't cut faster than Leon could rake. Finally he said it looked like rain and thought I better help him get the hay under cover. I didn't see no signs of rain but I took one of my hosses and finished the raking job. Leon hitched his plug onto the funniest looking hay wagon you ever see. 'T was a bit bigger than a kid's toy wagon and it did have four wheels. He and his man pitched the hay into it. But they didn't use no system at all. A load of hay is built up, you know, with forkfuls of hay like a brick chimney or a stone wall. They just pitched it on any old way - made a kind of big haycock so's one forkful would top the load - 'stead of regular rows like we did it. Maybe it was the way he was taught at State. Then they wouldn't bind the load, nor nothing, just start for the barn. On the way the forkfuls would keep tumbling off like kids out of a truck at a school picnic. But they wouldn't stop, no sir! They went straight for the barn with whatever was left on the wagon. And they never picked it up on the way back neither. I know I went by there late in the fall, and here the field was, covered with little haycocks where the wagon had been. And, I snum the rest of the grass hadn't been cut neither! College or no college, Leon just wasn't brought up right. {Begin deleted text}"{End deleted text} {Begin inserted text}{Begin handwritten}Robert Wilder{End handwritten}{End inserted text}