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 things which were of importance to me, that their efforts might be intelligent and direct; and I was glad to enter into their schemes, either for pleasure or for profit, with such aid as I could give. Cordial understanding between employee and employer puts life into the contract, and disposes of perfunctory service, which simply recognizes a definite deed for a definite compensation. Uninterested labor leaves a load of hay in the field to be injured, just because the hour for quitting has come, while interested labor hurries the hay into the barn to make it safe, knowing that the extra half-hour will be made up to it in some other way.