BARBED WIRE
Nelson, Louis
Barbed Wire By LOUIS NELSON WHEN JOHNSON came over the other evening for a neighborly visit, I offered him my big leather chair, —the one I always reserve for myself, except when in a most...
...The first cost of a woven wire fence may be greater, but the final cost of a barbed wire fence is often enormous, and we are just as liable to pay that price as our neighbors...
...And Johnson's thoughts naturally turned to the pleasures of wealth and easier ways of getting rich than fall plowing, at which he had been engaged all day...
...and began filling his pipe preparatory to going...
...They get an idea and their fortune is made...
...Johnson didn't know whether to agree to this proposition or not...
...Blemished horses which, if saleable at all, are sold without profit,—cows, with lacerated udders, their usefulness destroyed,—doctors' bills,—personal inconvenience,—bushels of evils hang on barbs...
...If one experience teaches the dumb animals, they are certainly wiser than we humans...
...Trespassers," he said, "you can't keep off trespassers with your woven wire fences...
...Barbed wire...
...A new idea struck him...
...Why, you know," he continued, "a man even made a fortune inventing barbed wire...
...The sight or mention of barbed wire always recalls an experience I had when a boy...
...The combined influence of that chair and a cob pipe is to make the occupant feel at peace with the world...
...I suggested that intestinal worms and skin diseases were disorders that no intelligent farmer allowed to go untreated and it was better to cure the animal of these diseases than to adapt the farm fences to their aggravation and spread...
...The ordinary farmer can't afford to use woven wire," he argued...
...I reminded him that "learning" had to be an individual experience and the poor beasts generally carry the marks of their experiences for life...
...How intolerable the thought of a fortune as a reward for its invention...
...But my blood was boiling...
...I should certainly refence all my pasture, regardless of my financial condition," I answered quickly, "and then as repairs were needed on the fences on other parts of the farm, I would gradually do away with barbed wire entirelv...
...We blame the "hard luck" that pursues us while we invest the few dollars we got for a "good" horse "ruined" in a barbed wire fence last year, in more wire to build it over again this season...
...And I was angry to think of the fortune since made in handling it, and enraged at the farmers for using it and creating a demand for it...
...The dumb appeal of a poor helpless horse I chanced upon while walking along a country road, as he lay there hopelessly entangled in a barbed wire fence, the dark blood oozing from his wounds, his large liquid eyes looked up to me as I came near, and he whinnied...
...At this point Johnson interrupted with the objection that horses and stock bothered with stomach and intestinal worms and skin diseases get into the habit of rubbing against a woven fence to scratch themselves, and often break it down...
...But if a man has his farm fenced in barbed wire you can't expect him to refence the entire farm at once, can you...
...Johnson studied his pipe in silence trying to think of some other striking illustration of getting rich quick...
...Now Johnson in coming over here has to cross cut our fields as well as his own, and as he disappeared in the darkness, I called out to him in neighborly fashion, "If you discover anything wrong with our fences as you cross the stiles going home tonight, telephone me, won't you...
...Even if a barbed wire fence is cheaper than a woven wire one, it also needs to be repaired oftener...
...They can't afford to fence with barbed wire, you had better say," I replied...
...Barbed Wire By LOUIS NELSON WHEN JOHNSON came over the other evening for a neighborly visit, I offered him my big leather chair, —the one I always reserve for myself, except when in a most hospitable mood...
...That whinny, speaking the pain of his hurts and his joy at my approach, the appeal of that dying beast sank into my heart to stay forever...
...Animals soon learn to keep away from barbed wire," Johnson insisted...
...They can have pie three times a day for the rest of their lives...
...All of the anger aroused in me then vented itself upon Johnson now...
...Why I noticed coming over here tonight that some of them had cut right across my field and pulled the barbed wires off at both ends...
...asked Johnson...
...The explosion had little effect upon him, though it relieved me...
...One seldom hears of a real farmer getting real rich," Johnson said, "no matter how much dirt they turn over, while with some people it is the easiest thing in the world...
Vol. 3 • January 1911 • No. 1
