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79

A two-holer was located in a rear lean-to and a single-holer in the bard. It sounds pretty awful by present day standards or even city standards of those days, but it was fun, it was entirely novel, it was extremely healthful, and I personally enjoyed it. Furthermore, the food was superb, particularly the fresh vegetables right in out of the huge vegetable garden, which included strawberries and raspberries. And, of course, there were apples unlimited and the best to be had, in half a dozen different varieties. They made the most delicious ice cream I have ever tasted in an old hand-operated freezer using the rich, fresh cream produced by the resident cows. The amount of food served was enormous as the farm hands had tremendous appetites. Corn on the cob was brought in on huge platters, each holding maybe two dozen ears and it was common for the hands to eat a dozen ears apiece. Roasts were likewise immense and served lavishly -- oh, those magnificent roasts of beef they had and how they tasted! You can't get anything as good today, I don't care where you go. And the eggs were right out of the henhouse and with a flavor you seldom get anymore. And after working for a few hours out in the fields or in the garden or the orchard, you had a ravenous appetite and the food tasted even better than ever. It was a good, wholesome life.

Earl Andrews was the senior hired hand and in some respects, was somewhat of a mystery man. The first question was why he was working on a farm to begin with. He was the son of an insurance man in Syracuse; his father wasn't well-to-do, judging from their home, which I saw once or twice, but you would have expected Earl to follow almost anything but farming. I was too young to understand all the angles and it may be that Earl had a health problem which dictated an outdoor life, or maybe he'd been a failure at some city pursuit and thought this would change his luck. In 1915, I'm guessing that he was around 30 years old because he'd been on the farm long enough to know how to handle all the jobs. Cousin Kate was probably 45 at the time and her relationship with Earl seemed almost like that between mother and son although there was considerable gossiping about them as time went on. I've always tended to be quite naive about such situations and my impression is that the relationship was okay, especially because there was a great difference in Cousin Kate's generally good taste and background as contrasted with Earl's poor taste, profane and often just plain dirty talk, and obvious lack of any outlook even remotely like Cousin Kate's. Maybe Earl was a gigolo but I doubt it -- and perhaps I doubt it only because I was so fond of Cousin Kate and wanted to picture her in a role that pleased me. At any rate, Cousin Kate was the general manager of the farm and Earl was the field boss so to speak except that most of the time, there was only one other employee to boss and that was Mike Beeler, the second hired hand. Mike was younger that Earl, maybe in his mid-20s, and I had the impression that Mike resented Earl.