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Show Father get the pump working. Whether Bill's rocks were responsible or not, we never induced the pump to throw more than a trickle. Possibly the height it had to lift the water was too great for the type. Perhaps the quicksand clogged the pump. But a season was wasted while we tinkered with the pump and a big unreliable gasoline engine. To sum it up, we never raised much on the Ex-Farm. But a 1915 Nada Commercial Club folder hinted the world was focusing its eyes on two new ventures, the Panama Canal and Escalante's Nada. As a matter of fact, we did exhibit bottles of wheat and rye at the Panamej-Pacific expositions in San Francisco and San Diego. Our only semblance of success came out of an accident. Father had formed a friendship with"Honeybee" Anderson of Beaver, nicknamed thus because his main interest was bee culture. But he sold alfalfa hay from his ranch after the bees had harvested nectar from the "lucerne". One summer Honeybee delivered several tons of hay to us for our cows. With the resulting manure we fertilized a sizable corner of the station field. What to our wondering eyes should appear next spring but a luxuriant stand of alfalfa where we had pitched the fertilizer from Honeybee's hay. We were delighted. We might have local hay to feed our milk cows instead of importing alfalfa from the Mormon settlements watered by mountain streams. We abandoned everything in that corner of the Ex-Farm except the alfalfa, which we cared for watchfully. Having taken a liking to the jovial Honeybee, we recalled him whenever we walked about in the alfalfa. We repeated a rhyme which, among other such drolleries of his, he'd told us |