"I don't agree with you, Mr. Brady. I think farming is the best of all. Building is interesting, of course, but planting crops and raising cattle and seeing things grow is the most interesting thing in the world to me, and I'm going to be a farmer. I like to hear the birds sing while I'm working." "Oh, but we've birds singing in the contracting business, too, for what's sweeter music to the ear than the puffing of a hoisting engine, or the rattling of the chains of a steam shovel? Music is music the world over--it's only a matter of education the kind we enjoy most. Now, to me, the escaping steam is the sweetest music I know, for it means dollars to me; but I must be looking after me work instead of standing here blarneying with you all the morning." "I wish we had your men to dig our trench for the new water supply, Brady," said Joe Williams. "How deep do you want it?" asked the contractor. "About four feet. I guess that's the depth you wanted to make it, Bob?" he asked turning to his nephew. "Yes, Uncle Joe," he replied. "Say, Williams, you're wasting time and good muscle digging that trench. Let me dig it for you in two days." "What--in two days!" exclaimed Joe Williams. "You surely couldn't use your steam shovel for that job, it would be too big and heavy." "I'll be using no steam shovel, Williams," said the contractor. "I'll use dynamite." "Why, how could you do that?" asked Bob, interested at once. "Sure, my boy, there's many easier ways than digging a trench with a pick and shovel. I have some dynamite in town now that would be just the thing to blast out your trench. Of course, it will scatter the dirt around some, for dynamite is usually used to make an open ditch rather than one that is to be re-filled, but it will be less work to gather up the dirt than to dig through the hard shale, and that reminds me," he continued, "when you come to put in your concrete fence posts, don't break your back digging holes if you strike hard shale; just put in a stick of dynamite and loosen her up--you'll find it will save you lots of backaches." "How much would it cost, Brady?" asked Joe Williams much interested. "Let me see," said the contractor. "You, say it's about 1400 feet long and four feet deep. That will mean putting down 470 holes, three feet six inches deep, and require 360 pounds of dynamite." He figured for a moment on a memorandum pad and added: "I'll do the whole job for $100.00, which is about one-fourth of what it will cost you to open up the ditch, and I'll complete it in two days. You may have to level off the bottom of the trench here and there for the pipe, but at that it will be easier than digging the entire trench." "All right, Brady," said Joe Williams; "when will you start?" "To-morrow morning," said the contractor. "I'll get the dynamite to- day." "But isn't dynamite dangerous, Mr. Brady?" asked Bob.