Surely this
farmer was a practical Christian. He believed in his fellow man and at
the same time gave him no opportunity to abuse his faith in him....
* * * * *
It was pleasant, this working for from a few days to a week, then
sauntering on ... putting up at cheap little country hotels overnight. I
liked it better than tramping....
I pitched hay, I loaded lumber, I dug, I planted, I reaped.
In lower Minnesota a Swedish emigrant farmer hired me to help him with
his hay crop. He and I and his lanky son, Julius ... just coming out of
adolescence ... we worked away from sun-up till moon-rise....
The first day I congratulated myself for working for that particular
farmer. The meat at table was abundant and fresh.
But before my two weeks were up I had grown weary of the diet. They had
killed a cow ... and cow-meat was what I found set before me morning,
noon, and night,--every day. I complained about it to Julius ... "when
we kill a cow ain't we got to eat it?" he replied.
Every afternoon we participated in a pleasant Swedish custom. The two
women of the household, the mother and grandmother, with blue cloth
rolled about their head for headgear, brought us coffee and cake
a-field....
"Aeftermittagscaffee," they called it.
It refreshed us; we worked on after that till late supper by lamp,
driving back to the house by moonlight.
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