had a talk with Syd
Woodward, the dealer there. It took me just about ten minutes to get
down to hard-pan with him, once he was convinced that I meant
business. He's going to take over my one heavy team, Tumble-Weed and
Cloud-Maker, though it still gives my heart a wrench to think of
parting with those faithful animals. I'm also going to sell off
fifteen or eighteen of the heaviest steers and turn back the tin
Lizzie, which can be done without for a few months at least.

But, on the other hand, I'm going to have an 8-16 tractor that'll turn
over an acre of land in little more than an hour's time, and turn it
over a trifle better than the hired hand's usual "cut and cover"
method, and at a cost of less than fifty cents an acre. Later on, I
can use my tractor for hauling, or turn it to practically any other
form of farm-power there may be a call for. I'm also getting a special
grade of seed-wheat. There was a time when I thought that wheat was
just merely wheat. It rather opened my eyes to be told that in one
season the Shippers' Clearance Association definitely specified and
duly handled exactly four hundred and twenty-eight grades of this
particular grain. Even straight Northern wheat, without the taint of
weed-seed, may be classified in any of the different numbers up to
six, and also assorted into "tough," "wet," "damp," "musty,"
"binburnt" and half a dozen other grades and conditions, according to
the season. But since I'm to be a wheat-grower, it's my duty to find
out all I can about the subject.

I am also the possessor of three barrels of gasoline, and a new
disk-drill, together with the needed repairs for the old drill which
worked so badly last season. I've got Whinstane Sandy patching up the
heavy sets of harness, and at daybreak to-morrow I'm going to have him
out on the land, and also Francois, who has promised to stay with us
another two weeks. It may be that I'll put Ikkie in overalls and get
her out there too, for there's not a day, not an hour, to be lost. I
want my crop in. I want my seed planted, and the sooner the better.

Whinstane Sandy, on account of his lame foot, can't follow a plow. But
there's no reason he shouldn't run a tractor. If it wasn't for my
bairns, of course, I'd take that tractor in hand myself. But my two
little hostages to fortune cut off that chance. I've decided, however,
to have Whinnie build a canopy-top over the old buckboard, and fit two
strong frames, just behind the dash