the "separator", and later with the advent of the steam engine, there would be the engineer, the water boy who kept the engine supplied with water, and lastly the unskilled help. These men all had to have dinner with us the days they threshed for us, as they did with others, and the machine crew referred to above ate supper and breakfast with the farmer and his family. I think one of the few times I ever heard mother object or complain about anything was when she spoke out (to her family only) concerning the fact that local men on the threshing crew always expected their breakfast and supper at our house rather than to eat at their own homes.

I think her strongest vocal resentment came when the thresher, due to arrive at about ten o'clock the next day would find they could finish the previous job they were on just in time to arrive at our place for supper. That, of course, meant breakfast also. Probably the height of imposition came when they were due to finish at our job by about three or four in the afternoon ready to move to the next farmer, but they would have unexpected delays causing them to finish just at dark, so that meant supper and breakfast again. Actually this was a compliment to mother for the table of food she would prepare, but it annoyed her non-the-less.

On one occasion we were having the threshers for dinner when the Singer Sewing machine salesman arrived just in time to have his dinner as he always did on his trips to our town. He was very perturbed when he learned the threshers were to eat too. He had little confidence in the matter of getting an even break with threshers and was reluctant to come in. However, Melvin sitting next to me moved a little to the right and I moved a little to the left and we pulled up his chair for him. The meal had started when he pulled up his chair and at the same time called in a rather loud voice: "Pass the potatoes!" Two plates of the demanded potatoes were close by and as I put one plate under his nose, Melvin put another plateful in the same area between his nose and his plate. That was the last we heard from until the meal was over.

Every boy knows that his mother was the best cook in the world and I was no exception. Beans cooked just right on washday, usually Monday, were something else, and so on and so on. I think her greatest miracle with food was her ability to steam stale bread in such a way that one wondered why it was ever served any other way. One element in her cooking intrigued me; her ability to keep a cake or pudding receipt in her head. She just never needed a cook book. She would put in a few cups of flour, a chunk of butter, a cup or so of sugar and a couple or so eggs, a shake of baking powder and a dash of salt and a spattering of the other necessary ingredients and she had it exactly right.

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