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Goldfoot
Farm
Wed., Aug. 26, 1925
Robert
has changed greatly in the last two weeks, often smiling
now and even occasionally getting the giggles when Bill
kids and plays with him. While haying Bill will say,, "Sock
'em, Robbie," or "Stamp 'em down, Robbie,"
or when Robert, a little sulky, mumbles his words, "Speak
up like a man, Robbie," and Robert smiles and reacts
playfully. He's evidently crazy about Bill. Today they went
together to buy a calf.
The Goldfoots pay $5 for a calf, feed it for about six weeks,
then sell it for $19 or $20.
Four kittens were born yesterday, thus rounding out a dozen.
The house is filled with empty bottles in brilliant blue,
of all sizes, for the folks are large consumers of patent
medicines. The small ones with holes punched in their tin
tops are used on the table for salt and pepper. A medium-sized
one stands on the stove filled with cooking salt. Preserves
and pickles in the large ones line cupboard shelves. A couple
of spoonfuls of "Nervo" from the blue bottles,
in a glass of water, is swallowed upon arising every morning
by both master and missus. It evidently takes some time
for Nervo to work, for the missus is pretty silent and sullen
for a couple of hours but as the day goes on she brightens,
although occasionally she needs a second dose.
A row of various bottles adorns the sideboard: Balsom of
Myrrh, Sloan's Pain Killer for Man and Beast, Epsom Salts,
Castor Oil, salves of various kinds, a pink liquid in a
bottle without a label, a bottle of large flat yellow pills
and one of round red ones. The boss takes the latter after
every meal and recommends them to Bill, saying they must
be good because they come all the way from Chicago. Bill
calls them, "the boss' Chicago dynamite." Somehow
they constantly drop on the floor and roll into out-of-the-way
corners, where I find them when I sweep.
The missus says Robert needs something to "sweeten
him up," and that even by giving him salts in his coffee
every Monday, he is pretty sour by Saturday. Last Monday,
wary, he did not touch his coffee and thought he was getting
away with it, but the missus had come down late that morning,
so had not put in any salts. The next morning, however,
when Robbie took a big unsuspecting gulp, oh, boy what a
sputtering!
Yesterday morning Rich Morton, the wealthiest, canniest
but stingiest bird in the neighborhood, came ostensibly
to get butter, but probably really to pump Bill about G.E.,
as he has some of its stock. Rich has never been known to
have been bettered in a bargain. How his splendid, intelligent
wife stands her existence I fail to see. Since a horse eats
his head off during the winter, Rich buys one in the spring
and sells it in the fall, thus making it necessary for Mrs.
Rich to walk to shop or to church, often in the snow.
Rich has a lot of labor-saving devices for his own farm
needs, but nothing to make the housework easier. At one
time he had a phone, but Mrs. Rich called her mother twice
in the same day, whereupon it was immediately discontinued.
No one knowingly will work for him, so during the haying
season he depends upon drifters who soon quit, the pay being
poor. Consequently Mrs. Rich has to work in the fields.
Rich, a real mortgage shaver, holds mortgages on most of
the farms in the valley, including a large one on the Goldfoot's,
as they were completely burned out four years ago. When
he says he’d like some apples or asks Pa to help him
with the haying, as he often does, Pa always does what Rich
wants, as he is afraid Rich might foreclose or refuse a
future loan, if needed.
The Goldfoots can't see what is the good in having all that
money, anyway, as the Mortons never enjoy spending a cent
and have no children to inherit it.
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