Diary of Two Motorcycle Hobos #essentialsofrec #recovery #Lois #aa

By Lois Wilson

PART III

Goldfoot Farm, Scotia, N.Y.

Mon., July 27, 1925

From all we hear we have struck the best place to work in the neighborhood. We hear that most everybody hereabouts is either stingy or cranky. George and Ella Goldfoot certainly are neither, although they have no flair for management. Everything in the house is placed most inconveniently, so the least little job takes innumerable steps. Their chief fault, I imagine, is over‑ambition, trying to tackle more than they are able to accomplish. One of two large farms goes almost entirely to waste because it is impossible to get around to tending it. Cherries, pears and apples rot for want of picking. For a couple of years they have had to buy several hundred dollars' worth of hay because there was not time to cut their own. There are fields of rye, oats, wheat, alfalfa, and corn, yet they buy grain for the chickens. They try to grow watermelons and cantaloupe, besides the regular garden vegetables. They sell eggs, chickens, veal, and butter; every other day Robert and Mrs. G. churn as much as forty-three pounds at one time.

This morning Bill was astonished by the missus' saying that right after breakfast she had to kill a calf to take to town. Sure enough, before the men had finished milking she had caught and killed a calf, strung it up on a pulley over the barn door, all quartered, ready for market. Nothing fazes her; certainly she is the "swashbuckleer" Bill calls her. It used to take a full day a week to deliver her produce in town with horse and buggy; but today Bill took her in the motorcycle, calf and all, thereby saving her at least half a day.



Goldfoot Farm

Tues., July 28, 1925

Lately Bill has been talking a lot about "dirt farmers." Well, Mr. Hall, a neighbor, is certainly of the earth, smelly, and a good example of the tightness of the folks hereabouts. Before going to the field where he was supposed to help with the haying, he gave me a long harangue about the evils of the world in general, and his wife in particular.

"You'll never save‑by anything unless you git up at sun‑up, no matter how hard and long you work the rest of the day," he says. "I've seen folks that telt how hard they worked, goin' out at night a‑mowin' with a lantern. Wal, mam, I've been over to see them same folks at seven or eight in the mornin', and they hadn't had their breakfast yit.

"And another thing, you can't git along unless you and your wife pull together. That's what ails me. My wife is terrible extravagant, and no matter what I save‑by we'll never be well off, for she spends such a heap. I took her and the gal down to git shoes yesterdy. They each liked a pair marked $2.95. She would've paid that price, but I says to the clerk, 'That's pretty steep. Can't you make 'em cheaper?' He says as how I was a good customer he'd give 'em both to me for $5.75. Some better, hey!

"I bought two oat forks in town yesterdy, also. Don't ye tell anyone I paid only 40¢ apiece for 'em, 'cause I told Seth Smith I'd git him one for 50¢ and I don't want him to know I'm taking 10¢ off him.

"I don't care whether your man smokes or not, it's a filthy habit and I'd rather see a man dead drunk than smokin'.

"I tell you, my old woman is mighty cranky these days and don't do a stroke of work any more. I don't know what ails her. She says her glasses are broke, so she can't darn my socks, but I caught her down churnin' and reading some old trashy magazine at the same time. She could see well enough for that alright, etc. etc. etc."

Mrs. G. told me Mrs. Hall makes their clothes, bakes bread, raises garden vegetables and berries and sells them in town, while the mister sits around, complaining about her, and comes late to help his neighbor with the haying!



Goldfoot Farm

Thurs., Aug. 6, 1925

Bill and I often have a hard time keeping our faces straight, the male boss being such a scream. Talking incessantly, everything he says is by way of, or in parenthesis to something else, which he seldom reaches. He changes his mind a dozen times whether to water the horses before or after supper and then ends up by asking "Ella." Tonight there was an unexpected letter for them. Pa, striding to the door for light, read out loud an invitation to a Variety Shower. Coming back to the supper table he sat quietly while I explained a Variety Shower to them. Then, thinking of some point he wanted to verify, he went to the door again to reread the note out loud. Discussing the matter and starting to sit down, he didn't quite make it before, wanting to satisfy himself about another point, to the door he went again. He must have done this at least five times. We stuffed potatoes in our mouths to keep from howling with laughter.

As is to be expected, Ella and her mother‑in‑law do not see eye to eye. The last time the old lady was here George had a lot of green apples on the cellar floor, to make cider. Ella, noticing they were rotting and breeding a thousand little flies, said to George, "Get this dumb mess out of here." The old lady, hearing the remark, said Ella wanted the applies out because she was "too darned lazy" to make cider. So Georgia's mother, laboriously grinding up a few apples with a cheese grater, squeezed the mush through a rag, so her George could have his glass of cider. This, of course, via Ella.

The missus has showed me how to stew up elderberries so they are delicious, with lemons, vinegar, raisins and lots of spices. I serve them nearly every day either in a pie or as sauce.





Goldfoot Farm

Fri., Aug. 7, 1925

Being very religious, the farm folks here never work on Sunday, or not more than is absolutely necessary. They are shocked at Mr. Green who "claims to be a Christian, yet plows on Sunday." Instead of swearing, they modify most every noun with "dumb." Did not Pa learn his lesson when he was a young man working at G.E., by losing two fingers after he had sworn a naughty "damn!" When Ma is mad at the horses she calls them many terrible names; all of them, however, escape being swear words.

The old man cannot rake hay in a straight windrow to save his life. Bill says he tries to rake his name in hay. When an appealing wisp at the other end of the field catches his eye, he heads for it, but a still more irresistible bit off at an angle will change his course again. Bill, the missus and Robbie laughed all afternoon at his capers, until finally turning too acute an angle, he broke the rake.

My heart aches for poor little Robbie, who has been looking forward all week to a picnic tonight. The Sunday School teacher was to pick up the boys and take them to a nearby lake for an outdoor supper. As Robbie was crazy to go and as it seemed harmless enough, I put in a good word with the missus, but she said there might be tough boys along who would teach him swear words. So Robert did not go.



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.



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.



Morowski Farm, Schenectady, N.Y.

Thurs., Sept. 3, 1925

We left the Goldfoots yesterday, and are now camping, for a day or so, at our old stand on the Polish farm. The $93.75 we received for our labor seems pretty big to us, after having been so flat broke, but believe me, we worked for every penny of it. Our bosses seemed sorry to have us leave; the old lady, usually demonstrative only with the cats, actually kissed me goodbye. They asked us to stay another month, but we hanker after the open road and made quite a concession in remaining two weeks over our month. We do hate to leave Robbie, and wish we had more to give him than one of Ernest Seton Thompson's books we had with us.

A letter, arriving at the Morowski's soon after we left, was waiting for us, because Mrs. Morowski did not know where to forward it. One of the Power and Light Companies where Bill had applied had offered him a job. Such employment might have been more interesting and profitable mentally, but I doubt if, at the end of six weeks, we would have been any better off financially; and I am sure we would not have been as well off physically, for we are both fit, husky, and as brown as Indians.

We spent the morning making our camp ship‑shape and are off to town now to spend some of our hard earned cash on provisions.



Yonkers, N.Y.

Sun., Sept. 13, 1925

You never can tell where you'll be, one day to the next. Ten days ago Bill received a wire from Dr. Strobel, his Mother's second husband, telling about a recent accident to his car, and asking Bill to come down to Yonkers to straighten out some sort of legal trouble it had caused. So we stored our camp‑gear in the Morowski's barn and left Schenectady immediately. Driving all night, we arrived in Yonkers at 4 A.M., awakening the household.

Today Bill heard a dealer's demonstration of the talking movie, in which he had been interested, and I am just over a light touch of the flue.

Dr. Strobel's legal troubles are not too serious and are now settled. Tomorrow we leave for Schenectady.