Honesty
submitted by: David Staheli
Some of the “Kosher weeds” as my dad always called them, were taller than I was. Being the 6th child in a family of 9 children (8 living), at 7 years old, I was the youngest and smallest of my brothers and sisters who were invited to earn some real money in this big weeding project while Dad was at work.
1000 feet of fence line stretched endlessly in front of the five of us, and we had agreed with Dad that we would pull the weeds that had grown up around the fence during the early summer. In return we would be paid a dime for clearing the weeds between each fence post. I admit that I was anxious to get started, and as we lined up along the fence, each of us one post ahead of the other, it felt like we were waiting for a starting gun to fire to release the runners in a big race! It was not only exciting to anticipate the reward for the labor that lay ahead of us, but to me the vision of the six of us collectively conquering this strip of jungle within the next half hour or so was exhilarating.
My oldest sister Yvonne (14) led the pack at the 5th post and then, Lauana, Delbert, and Mike each took their places at the next 3 posts leaving me to start at the very first corner spot. As I began, I could only see occasional glimpses of my brother Mike who was just one post ahead of me, as he bent down again and again to pull another big weed. My motion was considerably slower than Mike’s was, particularly during the strenuous “pulling” stroke, and sometimes when a tough weed suddenly released its grip on the soil, I found myself floundering back to my feet after landing flat on my sweaty back. I was determined to earn my first dime and after some time as I neared the 2nd post, I realized that Mike, Delbert, Lauana, and Yvonne, had each finished their 1st post and each one was nearly done with their 2nd post too.
Finally, I finished pulling the weeds between the 1st and 2nd posts and found that I had muscles I had not previously discovered. I was a bit worn down but held on to my will to keep moving forward. I knew that I should walk up ahead of my siblings and start at the next untouched section which was now nearly a dozen posts ahead of me. It felt unfair that my older brothers and sisters had already earned three or four dimes each while I had only earned one. I had probably worked even harder than them since it took much more effort from my little body to pull each weed.
As I dropped my eyes and kicked a few loose clods along the fence in my first few steps, a brilliant thought suddenly sprang into my mind! I was walking over weeds! Just a few little ones that Mike had missed but nevertheless, they were weeds! Perhaps he was so intent on pulling the big weeds that he didn’t want the little ones to slow him down. Further down the fence I noticed that Delbert, Lauana, and Yvonne had been equally negligent in their sections as well. “Dad would want all of these little weeds pulled too” I reasoned. “Since ‘they’ missed these, I will get them myself”, and I did.
Quickly I pulled each little weed that was yet standing and soon I was at the next post. That was 20 cents now! Each succeeding post seemed to come more quickly than the last and I found myself revitalized with excitement as I looked back at the distance I had covered, 6 posts, then 8, now 10, a whole dollar’s worth of dimes! And on I went, still unnoticed by the rest but gaining on them as I kept an accurate tally of the number of posts I had finished.
Finally, after what seemed like hours of hard work, the others finished the fence, Tired but satisfied, they trudged happily back and met me part way up the fence on their way back to the house. The little weeds they had missed along the rest of the fence that I had not yet covered seemed less important to me now and quickly faded from my thoughts as I turned around and joined them for the walk home. I was tired too. They were talking to each other as they walked a bit ahead of me, but I didn’t notice what it was about, being lost in my own thoughts about our day, about my day.
When Dad returned home from his work that evening, he did a quick inspection along the first several posts of the fence line and called us together to square up with us for the good work we had all done that day. I could tell he was very pleased with the five of us, that we had persevered and finished the job he had asked us to do, and especially that we had done it on our own without him or Mother keeping the prod on us. Sensing his satisfaction with his children, I also felt some satisfaction of my own for a moment too, in being a part of this accomplishment. I had great love and respect for my Dad and knew that he did not hand out empty compliments or lavish us with fuzzy and sweet expressions when we did something well. But there was no mistake in his manner when that gleam was in his eye, his children had done him proud.
Dad pulled a little spiral bound notebook and a worn yellow No.2 pencil out of his shirt pocket and starting with Yvonne asked, “How many posts did you do today?” She answered, and each of the others in order of their ages did the same. My mind went a bit dizzy, and I did not clearly register their answers as he wrote their names in his notebook, and the declared quantity of work each had done. I was startled back to reality when he asked me, “David. How many posts did you do today?” I don’t know if he noticed the initial choke in my voice as I started to answer. I had to stop and clear my throat long enough to muster a confident voice. “Twenty-Six”.
There! I got it out, and it sounded good! It felt good to just say it, to get it off my tongue! But the words did not completely escape my lips when suddenly my tongue went dry as Dad asked again, “How many?” I had to labor to push it out a second time, “Twenty-Six”. My heart began to beat hard, I felt something churning in my gut, and a flurry of thoughts flooded into me, “I did one full post and twenty-five more!” “Dad wanted ALL the weeds pulled, even the really small ones the others missed.” “I cannot disappoint my Dad now by disclosing the full story of the twenty-six posts.”
With my thoughts still racing he wrote my name and number with the others and went into the house. I relaxed a bit. He had believed me, and the anxiety was over. I did not have to worry more about it. I could be done with it and suppress the odd feelings I was experiencing. Dad came back out a little while later with a small envelope for each of us. Upon opening mine I indeed found the full $2.60 accompanied by a small note, “26 posts @ 10 cents each = $2.60” written in my dad’s handwriting.
That night I was pleased with the money I had earned, but I didn't sleep particularly well. My Dad and Mother had raised me with an understanding of honesty. I knew what it was, and deep inside I knew that anything short of complete honesty was not honesty.
The bigger dilemma that haunted me was that I knew my Dad trusted me, so the very fact that he only asked me for one additional confirmation of the number of posts I had completed was the evidence I was looking for now in my mind, to justify my answer to his first query. “26 posts” I had said, and then again, I had answered “26”. I found myself wishing that he had called me out immediately after my second answer so I could have explained HOW I had weeded the 26 posts and WHY I did it. I was sure that had he done that I would have stammered around enough trying to create a suitable justification for my thinking, that he would have recognized my breach of honesty and trust and given me the correction I needed and frankly wished I had received then and there. Had it been so, by now the stinger would have been removed and the pain of disappointing my Dad would have begun to subside, and I would not now have to wonder whether he really did trust my answer or whether there was a shadow cast on him regarding his little son’s integrity.
The next morning, I went about my day as normal, deciding that it would be worse for both me and my Dad to disclose my wrong after the fact, as I knew it would be a great disappointment to him. For the most part my little folly was forgotten, but I learned through the years that, like being “pretty honest” was not being “honest”, having something “for the most part forgotten” was not having it “forgotten”.
Years went by, and occasionally my mind would go back to my “dimes for fenceposts”, and each time I thought, “I need to talk to my Dad about this and make it right”. But I didn’t.
Through the years that followed, my siblings and I continued to learn the value and satisfaction of work done well, and of having many meaningful things to do which gave us experience and a growing ability to take care of ourselves more and more. My Dad somehow always found a wide variety of jobs for us around town, around our little homestead, and around the valley. His job as the Postmaster brought a resident of nearly every household in town into the Post Office every day to get their mail, and somehow, he learned of every need in town that we could tackle up through our early teens. We did learn to work which cultivated confidence, self-respect, skills, endurance, and contentment.
Because of the intentional teachings of our parents, we all secured good regular jobs in our teen years which helped us earn the money we needed to pay for clothes, cars, missions, college, and fun, and to prepare for our lives ahead. I knew that with our large family it was sometimes difficult for my Dad to make all the ends meet at times, so sometimes I would secretly put a couple hundred dollars on his grocery bill at Terry’s Merc to ease the finances of the family. That felt good to me. But somehow the thoughts of my 26 fenceposts still crept into my thoughts now and then.
At around 30 years old, I was living the dream of my life, managing, and living on a beautiful Farm owned by Brent Hunter in the valley north of Cedar City. My wife and I had been blessed with 4 active little children by then, who kept us busy and brought much joy to our lives. We often drove to Enterprise for visits with my Mom and Dad and the extended family. On one visit our little family happened to be the only ones sitting around the old wood stove visiting with my folks and I decided it was time to clear my conscience of the $2.60 my dad had given me more than 20 years earlier for that fence weeding job.
“Dad”, my heart raced a little, “I need to clear something up with you”.
I told him the entire story. “I did not earn that $2.60 and I need to pay you back and I ask for your forgiveness”.
In his serious but witty voice he said, “I’m not sure you can afford the interest!!”
We all laughed, and he said, “You let that go now”.
So perhaps my Dad actually did trust me the day I declared that I (his little boy) had weeded 26 posts, and on the other hand, maybe he understood the follies of youth and the longer term lesson of life I needed to learn by coming to the conclusion of my own free will, and in my own time, that I was tired of carrying something so small and that often pricked my conscience, that was actually not going to go away simply by neglect and which was actually getting heavier each time it came to my mind.
I did learn that doing wrong, no matter how small, requires correction, and that nothing in this world feels so good as to know I am square with my family, with my fellow beings, and most importantly, with myself and my God.