Don’t Fence Me In

Daddy was an equal opportunity employer, not that I was grateful. I got to work right alongside him and my brother.  He had forty acres to fence.  That’s a mile of fence. He enlisted his free help, Bill and me. He cleared the right of  way.   We came in really handy for piling the brush and loading  the posts he’d made from the timber. After he dug the post holes with an augur behind his tractor,  we plodded along behind the trailer dropping posts in the holes,

i was totally surprised at the generous offer  he made once all the posts were dropped and we surveued the crooked mile of posts.  “I’ll give you a mickel apiece for every post you set and tamp.  I did a quick calculation.  That would only be about twenty-six dollars to split for the whole miserable job. It didn’t take either us long to turn down that opportunity.

He was ready for us.  Okay, then do it for nothing.  I want it finished this week so we can start stringing wire Saturday.  It was finished.  Saturday morning we were out there with him stretching wire.  I didn’t like that a bit better.