My great-granddaddy, Council Harmon, more commonly referred to as “Counce,” was dark-haired and blue-eyed and always wore a thick brush of a moustache. Standing about five feet six inches and weighing probably no more than 135 pounds in his prime, he sometimes had a hard time finding clothes to fit him. Even after reaching manhood, he continued wearing boy-sized shoes out of necessity.  

Though small of stature, he was a manual laborer and a hard worker like most men of his region, day, and time. Primarily a carpenter, he could perform almost any type of work, including welding, blacksmithing, overhauling wagons, and building water wheels for grist mills. 

He also made wooden tubs and butter churns, sometimes spending as many as three days on them before selling them for fifty cents apiece. Due to a shortage of tools and possessing only a handsaw, hammer, hatchet, square, and axe, he did the best he could with what he had to provide for his wife and nine children.

Despite its challenges, this line of work suited Counce much better than farming.  Early on, with a yoke of steers and a “Farmer’s Friend” turning plow, he had made a go of it. But the flat field he attempted to work was full of big, white pine stumps, and before long, the plow got hung on one of them. 

Although Counce attempted to put them in reverse, the ill-trained and unconcerned steers simply stretched their necks over the yoke as if they were commencing to sleep. Angered by this predicament, Counce stomped about, hollering at the steers. “I’ll kick ever’ tooth in your head out!” he warned them.

In an attempt to make good on his threat, he walked around to face the steers and kicked at one of their mouths and noses. But the steer simultaneously turned his head away, and Counce missed, kicking the yoke instead. The impact was so severe that his toes were dislocated and doubled back inside his boot, which ultimately had to be cut off of his swollen foot.

That was the end of Grandpa Harmon’s farming endeavors and the beginning of a better use of his time and talents. Some years later, when he moved his family to another community, he left behind the “Farmer’s Friend” plow…still stuck under that stump.