Page 33 - Super Cowboy Rides Again

lot to do. My dad said farming was getting very
competitive. Prices for stuff we grew hadn’t changed
much while the price of equipment had gone up a lot.
We didn’t have money for any of the new equipment,
and neither did most farmers, making it much harder to
earn a living. We were always exhausted, working
from well before sunup to after sundown.

Dad hired three ladies to work at the cutting table
with my mother. The cutting table was just a big table
built out of two-by-six boards with two knives on the
two long sides. The knives were bolted to the table,
standing up above the table and facing inward. Below
the table under each knife were two metal bars that
stuck out where a gunny sack hung between each
woman’s legs.

Beside the table there was room for the sorters.
The sorters were mostly my older brothers and sisters.
Their job was to sort any rotten potatoes from the table
into piles on the ground, leaving only good potatoes in

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