I worked a summer cutting cord wood with Henry Blankenship our closest neighbor who lived about a quarter mile down the dirt road from us in Licking, Missouri. I think it was the summer between my junior and senior years. I don’t remember how much he paid me, but he was a poor man who didn’t have much, and I don’t remember any other jobs being available.
I had to get up early when it was still dark and walk to his house where his wife, Martha, made biscuits and gravy for our breakfast - pretty good stuff! We rode in his old pickup to various cutting sites. He would cut down the right sized trees with his chain saw, trim the branches off, then cut the trunks to the correct length (he had a length rod of some sort attached to his chain saw). I then used a sledge hammer and splitting iron to split the logs in half, then into quarter sections. I also helped him load the split logs into the truck. Then we would drive to the charcoal making place and unload the wood. He sold the wood to a kiln for making charcoal.