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Show mum prichard Won SYNOPSIS. 2 I frrow tired of my work as a rolleRe Instructor and buy a New England farm on sisht. The practical thing for this ; t would-be farmer to do would be I', t to rent his new-bought farm j and become an earnest student fi; ; at the nearest agricultural col- ; ; lege. Will he be like most j other teachers and persuade v himself that he knows it all be- !; j fore he has really learned any- ; thing? ; CHAPTER II. My Farmer Comes. Three days later I closed the deal and hastened back to college. Professor Profes-sor Grey of the college botanical department de-partment assigned his chief assistant at the gardens to my case. He took aie to Boston, and In one day spent exactly ex-actly $041 of my precious savings, while I gasped, helpless in my ignorance. igno-rance. He bought, it appeared to me, barrels of seeds, tons of fertilizers, thousands of wheel hoes for horse and man, millions of pruning saws and spraying machines, hotbed frames and sashes, tomato trellises, and I knew not what other nameless Implements and Impedimenta. This was rather disconcerting. But the die was cast, and I came to a sudden sud-den realization that seven years of teaching the young idea how to punctuate punctu-ate isn't the best possible training for running a farm, and if I were to get out of my experiment with a whole skin I had got to turn to and be my own chief laborer, and hereafter my own purchaser, as well. All that night I packed and planned, and the next morning I left college forever. I slipped away quietly, before the chapel bell had begun to ring, voiding all tender good-bys. I had a srack of experiment-station bulletins in my grip, and during the four' "hours I spent on the train my eyes never left their pages. Four hours is not enough to make a man a qualified agricul turist, but it is sufficient to make him humble. I landed at Bentford station, hired a hack, and drove at once to my farm, and my first thought on alighting alight-ing was this: "Good, Lord, I never realized the frightful condition of that orchard! It will take me a solid week to save any of It, and I suppose I'll have to set out a lot of new trees besides. be-sides. More expense!" "It's a dollnr up here," said the driver of the hack, in a mildly insidious insidi-ous voice. I paid him brusquely and be drove away. I stood Id the middle of the road, my suitcase beside me, the long afternoon shadows coming down through my dilapidated orchard, and surveyed the scene. Milt Noble had poue. So had my enthusiasm. The house was bare and desolate. It hadn't been painted for twenty years, at least. I decided. My trunks, which I had sent ahead by express, were standing (lisconsolately on the kitchen porch. Behind me I heard my horse stamping In the stable, and saw my two cows feeding in the pasture. A postcard from one Bert Temple, my uenrest neighbor up the Slab City road, had informed in-formed me that he was milking them for me and, I gathered, for the milk. Well, if he didn't, goodness knew who would! I never felt so lonely, so helpless, help-less, so hopeless, in my life. Then an odd fancy struck me. George Meredith made his living, too. by reading read-ing manuscripts for a publisher! The picture of George Meredith trying to reclaim a New England farm as an avoeat'on restored my spirits, though Just why perhaps It would be difficult to make anyone but a fellow English : instructor understand. I suddenly tossed my suitcase into the barn, and began a tour of Inspection over my thirty acres. Tnere was tonic In that turn! That brook ran south close to the road which formed my eastern boundary, along the entire exteDt of the farm some three hundred yards. As I followed fol-lowed the brook Into the maples and then into the sudden hushed quiet of my little stand of pines, I thought how al! this was mine my own, to play with, to develop as a sculptor molds bis clay, to walk In, to read in, to ''ream in. Think of owning even a balf-acre of pine woods, stillest and coolest of spots! A single great pine, with wide-spreading, storm-tossed branches, like a cedar of Lebanon, stood at the stone wall, just Inside my land. "Somebody onght to get amusement out of this!" I said aloud, as I set off for the barn, gathered up my suitcase, and climbed the road toward Bert Temple's. If I live to be a hundred, I can never repay Bert Temple, artist in cauliflowers cauliflow-ers and best of friends In my hour of need. Bert and his wife took me In, treated me as a human. If helpless, fellow being, not as a "city man" to be fleeced, and gave me the best advice and the best supper a man ever had, meantime assuring me that my cows had been tested, and both were sound. The supper came first. I hadn't eaten such a supper since grandmother died. There were brown bread Joes only rival of Rhode Island Johnnycake for the title of the lost ambrosia of Olympus. They were so hot that the butter melted over them Instantly, and crisp outside, with delicious, runny ln-sides. ln-sides. "Mrs. Temple," said I, "I haven't eaten brown bread Joes since I was a boy. I didu't know the secret existed any more." Mrs. Temple beamed over her ample and calico-covered bosom. "Ton must hev come from Essex or Middlesex Middle-sex counties." she said, "if you've et brown bread Joes before." After supper Bert took me in hand. "First thing fer you to do's to git a farmer and carpenter," he said. "I kin git yer both, if yer want I should, an' not sting yer. Most noo folks thet come here gits stung. Seems like Bent-ford Bent-ford thinks thet's why they come!" "I'm clay in your hands," said L "Wall, yer don't exactly know me Intimately," said Bert with a laugh, "so yer'd better git a bit o' granite Into yer system. Neow, ez to a farmer there's Mike Finn. He lives 'bout a quarter of a mile from your corner. He'll come an' his son'll help out with the heavy work. We'll walk deowo an' see him neow, ef yer like." I liked, and in the soft, spring evening eve-ning we set off down the road. "Wal, then, ez to carpenters," Bert went on, "thar's good carpenters, an' bad carpenters, an' Hard Cider Howard. How-ard. Hard Cider's fergotteo more about carpeut'rin' then most o' the rest ever knoo, and he ain't fergot much. I - J - T-i r rn "All That Night I Packed and Planned." neither. But he ain't handsome, and he looks upon the apple Juice when it's yaller. Maybe yer don't mind looks, an' I kin keep Hard Cider sober while he's on your job. He'll treat yer fair, an' see thet the plumbers do." We walked on, turned the corner at my brook, and followed the other road along past my pines till we came to a small settlement of white cottages. At one of these Bert knocked. We were admitted by a pretty, blue-eyed Irish girl, who had a copy of Caesar's "Commentaries" "Com-mentaries" in her hand, into a tiny parlor, par-lor, where an "airtight" stove stood below a colored chromo of the Virgin and Child, and a middle-aged Irishman Irish-man sat in his shirtsleeves, smoking a pipe. "Hello, Mike," said Bert, "this Is Mr. John Dpton, who's bought Milt Noble's place, an' wants a farmer and gardener. gar-dener. I told bim you wuz the man." "Sit down, sor, sit down," said Mike, offering a chair with an expansive and hospitable gesture. "Sure, let's talk It over." The pretty daughter had gone back to her Caesar by the nickel oil lamp, but she h;id one car toward us. und I I caught a corner of her eye. too an I extremely attractive, not to say provocative provo-cative eye. "Well, now," Mike was saying, "sure I can run a farm, but what do I be gettin' fer It?" "Fifty a month," said I, "which Includes In-cludes milking the cows and tending furnace In winter." "Sure, I got more than that on me last place and no cows at all." "Ye're a liar, Mike," said Bert "That's a fightln' word In the ould country," said Mike. "This ain't the old country, and yer got forty-five dollars," Bert grinned. "Besides, ye'll be close to yer work. You wuz a mile an' a half frum the Sulloways. Thet makes up fer the milkin'." "True, true," Mike replied, meditatively. medita-tively. "But what be yer runnin' the place for, Mr. Upton? Is it a real farmer ye'd be?" "A real farmer," I answered. "Why?" "Well, I didn't know. I've heard say yer wuz a literary feller, too, Mr. Dpton, and I have me doubts." "Well, I'm a sort of a literary feller," fel-ler," I confessed. "But It's you I want to be the real literary feller, Mike. You must write me a poem in potatoes." pota-toes." Mike put back his head and roared. "It's a pome yer want, Is it?" he cried. "Sure, it's an oration I'll give ye. I'll grow ye the real home rule pertaters." "Well," said I, rising, "do you begin be-gin tomorrow morning, and will your son help for a few weeks?" "The mornin' it Is," said Mike, "and Joe along." I paused by the side of the girl. "All Gaul Is divided into three parts," 1 laughed. She looked up with a pretty smile, but Mike spoke: "Sure, but they give all three parts to Nora," be said, "so what was the use o' dlvldln' it? She thinks she's me mither instead o' me daughter!" "I'll put yon to bed In a minute," said Nora, while Mike grinned proudly at ber. "I'm going to like Mike," said I to Bert, as we walked back up the road. "I knoo yer would 60on ez I seen yer," Bert replied. 'The only folks thet don't like Mike is the folks thet can't see a joke. Mike has a tolerable number o' dlsllkers." "Well, I've got my farmer," said I, "and now I suppose I've got to find a housekeeper, as soon as the bouse is ready to live In. Nora would suit me." "I reckon she would, "but she wouldn't suit Bentford." "In other words, I want an oldish woman, very plain, and preferably a widow." "With a young son old enoogh ter help on the farm," Bert added with a grin. "I don't suppose you know of Just such a combination?" "Reckon I dew. You leave It to my old lady." "Mr. Temple," said I, "seems to me I'm leaving everything to you." "Wal, neow, yer might do a beat sight worse!" said Bert. 1 went up to .my chamber when we got back, and sat down beside my little glass lamp and did some.figuring Added to my alleged salary as a man uscript render, along with what I hoped I could pick up writing, I reck lessly calculated my annual income as a possible $.3,000. Out of this I subtracted sub-tracted $(XiO for Mike's wages. $3i'i0 for a housekeeper. $-100 for additional labor, $75 for taxes, and S500 for additions addi-tions to my "plant," as I began to call my farm. . Then It occurred to me that 1 ought, of course, to sell my farm produce for a handsome profit. Bert had gone to bed, so I couldn't ask him how much I would be likely to realize. But with all due conservatism I decided that I could safely join the golf club. So I did, then and there. Whereupon I felt better, and. picking out the manuscript of a uovel from my bag, I went brave ly at the task of earning my living. CHAPTER III. Joy in an Old Orchard. The following morning was a balmy and exquisite first of May and Bert hustled me off Immediately after break fast to meet Hard Cider Howard, whom, by some rural wireless, he had already summoned. As we walked down the road, 1 glanced toward my lone pine, and saw my horse and Mike's hitched to the plow, with Joe driving and Mike holding hold-ing the handles. Across the green pasture, pas-ture, between the road and the hay-field, hay-field, already four rich brown furrows were shining up to the sun. At the house we found awaiting a strange-looking man, small, wrinkled, unkempt, with a discouraged mustache and a nose of a decidedly brighter hue than the rest of his countenance. He was tapping at the sills of the house. "How about it. Hard? Cement?" said Bert. Hard Cider nodded to me, with a keen glance from his little, bloodshot eyes. "Yep," he Bald. "Stucco over it Brick underpinning be ez good ez noo. Go inside." We stepped upon the side porch, Bert handing me the key and I opening open-ing the door of my new dwelling with a secret thrill. Hard Cider at once began on the kitchen floor, ripping np a plank to examine the timbers beneath. be-neath. We crossed the hall to the south side, where there were two corresponding rooms. Here, as on the other side, the chimney and fireplaces were on the inside in-side walls, and the mantels were of a simple but very good colonial pattern, though they had been browned by smoke and time to a dirt color. "Now I want these two rooms made Into one," said I. "I want one of the doors into the hall closed up, and a glass door cut out of the south side to a pergola veranda. Can you do it?" Hard examined the partition. He climbed on a box which we dragged in. and ripped away plaster and woodwork wood-work ruthlessly, both at the top and at places on the sides, all without speaking speak-ing a word. "Yep," be said finally, "ef yer don't mind a big cross-beam showln'. She's solid oak. Yer door, though, '11 have to be double, with a beam in the middle." "Finer I cried. "One to go in by, one to go out Guests please keep to the right!" "Hev ter alter yer chimney," he added, "or yer'll hev two fireplaces." There I After a whirl of ex- 8 8 pense and figuring the profes- ft S sor calls his farm a "plant." ft And he expects to "earn his liv- H ing!" He may earn It, but will 8 H he get it? His first day's work at his "plant" may tell us some- h thing about that. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |