for I carried the whole sum home;
but I do not remember that I was conscious of any want. The hours on the
farm were not short; an eight-hour day would have been considered but a
half-day. We worked from sun to sun, and I grew and knew no sorrow or
oppression. The next year I received the munificent wage of $6 a month,
and the following year, $8.

In after years, in brick-yards, sawmills, lumber woods, or harvest
fields, there was no arbitrary limit put upon the amount of work to be
done. If I chose to do the work of a man and a half, I got $1.50 for
doing it, and it would have been a bold and sturdy delegate who tried to
hold me from it. I felt no need of help from outside. I was fit to care
for myself, and I minded not the long hours, the hard work, or the hard
bed. This life was preliminary to a fuller one, and it served its use.
I know what tired legs and back mean, and I know that one need not have
them always if he will use the ordinary sense which God gives. Genius,
or special cleverness, is not necessary to get a man out of the rut of
hard manual labor. Just plain, everyday sense will do. But before I had
secured the three men for whom I was in search, I began to feel that
this common sense of which we speak so glibly is a rare commodity under
the working-man's hat. I advertised, sent to agencies and intelligence
offices, interviewed and inspected, consulted friends and enemies, and
so generally harrowed my life that I was fit to give up the whole
business and retire into a cave.

By actual count, I saw more than one hundred men, of all ages, sizes,
and colors. Eight of these were tried, of whom five were found wanting.
Early in February I had settled upon three sober men to add to our
colony. As none of these lasted the year out, I may be forgiven for not
introducing them to the reader. They served their purpose, and mine too,
and then drifted on.

CHAPTER LVI

THE SYNDICATE

I do not wish to take credit for things which gave me pleasure in the
doing, or to appear altruistic in my dealings with the people employed
at Four Oaks. I tell of our business and other relations because they
are details of farm history and rightfully belong to these pages. If I
dealt fairly by my men and established relations of mutual confidence
and dependence, it was not in the hope that my ways might be approved
and commended, but because it paid, in more ways than one. I wanted my
men to have a lively interest in the