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Goldfoot
Farm
Thurs., Aug. 13, 1925
The
folks barely skinned into the barn with a load of hay today,
before it poured. It has rained a lot lately, but the weather
makes little difference with my work, although one sunny
day I enjoyed weeding the garden. One showery day Mrs. G.
remarked, "It jest let up rainin' a few minutes in
order to git a fresh holt."
When we first came, no haying could be done even on a clear
day, because of broken machinery. Now Bill has repaired
most of their trappings, or purchased parts--the hay wagon
pole, the tedder, the big fork that lifts hay into the barn
by horse pulley, and the mowing machine were all mended.
Since then Pa has broken the hayrake and another wagon pole.
Yesterday, however, they got in all the wheat, four loads.
The boss had a couple of teeth out the other day, and when
he complained the next day about his jaw aching, the missus
replied:
"Why don't ya' keep ya' mouth shut? Ya' go around chin
waggin' all day and ya' mouth gits full of fog."
Robert says funny things too. Bunching hay after it has
been raked he calls "deedlin' the hay." The other
day it looked like rain and Robbie said:
"Oh, dear, we jest deedled the hay and how we got to
undeedle it all."
Robert's grandfather used to be a policeman, but now he
cuts the grass in a cemetery, "scuffles" the gravel
walk, and gets a nice big tip from the undertaker every
time he helps dig a grave or let down a box.
Among the array of Pa Goldfoot's jobs before he became a
landed proprietor, were turnkey in a jail and coachman for
Sam Insull, a new prominent public utilities magnate. Pa
has great stories about working for Mr. Insull, whom he
calls "a high-daddy" now but says he weren't "such
a big muck-a-muck" when he drove him, in a who-wheeled
gig drawn by a high-stepping horse, into Wall St. and back
from Orange, N.J., where they often saw Thomas Edison.
The missus also has stories about working as an upstairs
girl for a Major and his wife in Saratoga, N.Y. Now the
Goldfoots have hired help of their own.
Last Sunday, before looking over a small power plant at
Mechanicville, N.Y., we watched two shiny oil tankers go
through a nearby lock and talked with the canny Scotch lock-keeper.
It is a great relief to Bill after his disillusioning experience
with defaulters and shyster lawyers in his job as investigator
for U.S. Fidelity and Guarantee Co. in New York City, to
find the real workers of the country to be honesty, kindly
people.
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