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Show 3hejnYI of ia3WINMJi mm m wALTHR PRICHARD WQN COPyft.l&HT 000&L6DAV. BAtg CO- j SYNOFS13. j T ctow tireii of my work a: a c-oesre -r.stri:ctor and buy a New England farm I ?n sight. I inspect my farm and tro to i board at Bert Temple's. Eeri helps me to : hire a carpenter and a farmer. Hnrd ; Cider, the ..-iirpenler. estimates the repairs nrjd changes necessary on t'ne house. , How would you like to start J- , in to work such a place as this . man had saddled himself with, !' !, having no more knowledge of farming than he had? Will he 1 know how and where to take ! hold? !; CHAPTER III Continued. "Fine again!"' cried I. "A long room with two fireplaces, and a double-faced double-faced bookcase coming out at right ingles between them, with two settles below it, one for each fireplace! Better Bet-ter than I'd dreamed!" "Suit yerself." said Hard. My front doorway had once been a thing of beauty, with two little panel windows at the shies, and above all. Dn the outside, a heavy, hand-carved broken pediment, like the top of a Governor Gov-ernor Winthrop highboy. Hard looked at it with admiration gleaming In his eyes. "I'd ruther restore this than all the rest o' the job." he said, and his ugly, rum-soaked little face positively shone with enthusiasm. "Go ahead." said I; '"only I want the new steps of brick, widely spaced, with a lot of oement showing between. I'm going to terrace it here in front, too a grass terrace for ten feet out" "Thet's rlcht. tbet's right!" he exclaimed. ex-claimed. "Now I'll go order the lumber lum-ber an' bring yer the estimate ter-morrer." ter-morrer." "Seems to me the usual proceeding would be the other way around!" I ga sped. "Well, yer want me ter do the job. don't yer? Or don't yerl-" he said brusquely. "'Of course, of course!" I amended hastily. "Go ahead!" Hard climbed into a broken-down wagon, and disappeared. "Don't yon worry." said Bert, "I'll see he treats yer right." "It isn't that," I said sadly. "It's that I've just remembered I forgot to include any painters' bills In my own estimate." Bert looked at me in a kind of speechless pity for a moment. Then he said slowly: "Wal, I'll be swir.zled! Wait till I tell maw! An' her always stickin' up fer a collece education!" "Just for that, I'll show youl" cried I. "I never trimmed an apple tree in my life, but I'm going to work on this orchard, and I'm going to save it, all myself. It will be better than yours in three years." "Go to it." laugh-d Bert. "r,-,ni? back fer dinner, th-'ith. Neow I'll drive over ter the depot an" git yer freight. They telephoned this morula' It had come." "Gor.dl" I cried. "Yon might brln? me a bag of cement, too. and a ga.lon of carbolic acid." "Ye ain't tired o' life so soon, be yer?" "No," said I, "but I'm ::oing to show you rubes how to treat an orchard." Bert went off lnuhing. and presently present-ly I saw him driving toward town with "Well Yer Want Me to Do the Job, Don't Yer?" his heavy warron. T walked up to the plateau Held to greet M.kc. As I crested crest-ed the ridge the field lay before tne. the great, lone pine plaiiilliiic sentinel at the farther side, nod luilf of II was frail, yoni, gK en. and half rich, shining shin-ing brown. "She pi' mv b toi!-h, sor," srild Mike. s the panting horses paused for breath, "but she'll harrer down good. He the seed pert.itr come yit ':" "I'.ert lias toi:e for them," aald 1. "Ix't me b: Id the plow once." "It ain't to a.-j ns It looks," said Mlkr. "I'll do it if I haven't a rib left," said I grimly. And I did it My first full furrow looked like the track of a snake under the influence of liquor, but I reversed the plow and came back fairly . straight. I was beginning to get the ! hang of it. My next furrow was re-: re-: spectable, but not deep. On this return re-turn trip the sweat was starting from my forehead, and the smell of the horses and of the warm, fresh-turned earth .was strong in my nostrils. I didn't look at my pine. I was proud at what I had done, and my muscles gloried in the toil. Again I swung the plow around, and drove It across the field, feeling the reluctant grass roots fighting every muscle of my arms. "There." said I. triumphantly, "you plow all the rest as deep as that!" "Begobs, ye'z all right!" cried Mike. I went back again down the slope with all the joy of a mall boy and descended upon the orrnard. I had a couple of bulletins on pruning in my , pocket, with pictures of old trees re-; re-; morselessly headed down. I took a j fresh look at the pictures, reread some : of the text where I had marked it j and tackled the first tree, carefully repeating re-peating to myself: "Remove only a third the first year, remove only a third the first year." This. I decided, quite naturally did not refer to dead wood. By the time I had the dead wood cut out of hat first old tree, and all the water sprouts ; removed (as I recalled my grandfather , j used to call theml, which didn't seem . necessary for new bearing wood, the 1 poor tiling began to look naked. On j one side an old water spout or sucker had achieved the dignity of a limb and shot far into the air I was up in the tree carefully headotg this back and out when Bert came driving by i ! w ith his wagon heaped to overflowing. "Hi!" he called, "yer tryin' to kill them trees entire!" I I got down and came out to the road, j "You're a fine man and a true friend, I Mr. Temple." said I. "V.'t I'm going I to be the doctor for this orchard. A ! chap's got to have some say for himself, him-self, you know." "Well, they ain't much good, anyhow, any-how, them trees," said Bert cheer-ful'y. cheer-ful'y. j We now fell to unloading the wagon, j We opened up the woodsheds and j storehouse behind the kitchen, stowed in the barrels of seed potatoes, the fertilizers, fer-tilizers, the various other seeds, the I farm implements, sprayers, and so on. The hotbed frames and sashes were put away for future use, as it was too late to need them now. The horse hoe Bert h:.d not been able to bring on this trip. Next we got my books and furniture into the hone or shed, and, ! tired, hot and dirty, we drove on up i the road f t dinner. As we passed the 'upper field. I saw that the plowing j : was nearly done. The brown furrows had already lo-t their g!os. as my hands had already lost their whiteness. "Well, I'm a farmer now!" said I, surveying my soil-caked boots and ' grimy clothes. j "Yer on the- way. anyhow." said ; Bert. "But yer'll have ter cultivate thet field hard, seoin's how it oughter j hev been p lowed last fall." 1 That afternoon I went back to my orchard, put out my shiny and sharp new doublodclgod pruning saw, aud sawed till both arms ached, i As I worked, 1 thought how this orchard mut be trimmed and cleaned up first, but how the fine planting weather was upon us. too. and 1 on.-ht to be getting my garden seeds in. if 1 was to have any flowers. I thought, also, of all my inanuM-ripts to be read. A nervous lit seized me, and I worked frantically. That night I managed to keep awake til eleven, and got some work done. I also ro.o nt a compromise hour of six in the morninir. and worked another hour, almost catching up with what should have been my daily stint. Bn; j I realized that hereafter I could not work on the farm all day. must give up my mornings to my manuscript reading. "Well," thomdit I, "111 do It as soon as the on hard is finhheil." As soon as the orchard was finished! I stood amid the lilter I had made oi the ground, and rrlloeted. 1 had completed com-pleted the preliminary trimming of one row and part of a second. There w ere si ill over two rows and n half to do. And the worst trees were In those rows, nt that. After they were trimmed, there was nil the litter to clear out, anil the stubs to be painted, and cenient work to be done. "Good gracious!" thought 1, "if I do all that, when will I plant, when will I make my lawn?" Have you over watched a small boy picking berries? He never picks n bush clean, but rushes after this or that big cluster of fruit which strikes the eye, covering half an acre of ground while yon. perhaps, are strip-long strip-long n single clump of hushes. And In- Is usually amazed when your pail fills qnickrr than Ms. Alas! 1 fear I was iiini'li like that small boy during dur-ing my first season on the farm, or at liny rale dining the first month or two. Thin- was little "ellieiency" In my iiietho but, oh, much Jcllglill f As I had planned to pur my tardea co.ldframes along the south wall of the kitchen. I decided to make my tem- . porary seedbeds there. Mike assented to the plan as a good one. and I had him dump me a load of manure, while I brought earth from the nearest point in the garden, spaded np the soil, : mixed in the garden eai.h and dressing,, dress-ing,, and then worked and reworked ! it with a rake, and finally with my hands. Ah. the joy of working earth with your naked hands, making it ready for planting! The ladies I had seen in their gardens always wore gloves. Even my mother. I recalled, in her little garden, had always worn gloves. Surely, thought I, they miss something the cool, moist feel of the loam, the very sensations of the seeds themselves. them-selves. At four o'clock I had my bed j ready, and I got my seed packets, : sorted them in a tin tobacco box, and began to sow the seeds. The directions direc-tions which I read with scrupulous care always said, 'Tress the earth And Pumped Water on My Hands and Head. down firmly with a board." I was working with a fiat mason's trowel, so I got up and found a board. It wasn't half so easy to work with, but I was taking no chances! Mike and Joe were unhitching the horse from the harrow as 1 finished. The great, brown slope of the vegetable vege-table garden, lying away from the house toward the ring of southern hills, was ready for planting. There was my farm, theuee would come my profits prof-its if profits there should lie. But just at that moment the little strip of soaked seedbed behind me was more important. It stood for the color box with which I was going to paint for the fragrant pigments out of which I should create about my dwelling a dream of gardens. "After all," I thought, "a country place Is but half realized without its garden, even though it be primarily a farm, and ihe richness of country living liv-ing Is but half fulfilled unless we become be-come painters with shrub and tree and flower. 1 cannot draw, nor sing, nor play. Perhaps I cannot even write. But surely 1 can express myself here, about me. in color and landscape charm, and not be any the worse farmer farm-er for that. I have my work: 1 shall write: I shall be a farmer: I shall be a gardener an artist in (lowers; I shall make my house lovely within; I shall live a rich, full life. Surely I ni a happy, a fortunate man!" I put the watering pot back In the shed, crossed the road to the old wooden pump by the barn on a sudden sud-den impulse, and pumped water on my hands anil head, for I was hot. Mike stood in the barn door and laughed. "What are yez doin' that for?" he asked. I stood up and shook the water from my face and hair. "Just to be a kid, I guess." I laughed. There are some things Mike couldn't understand. Perhaps 1 did not clearly understand myself. In some dim way an old pump before a barn and the shock of water from Its spout on my head was fraught with happy memories memo-ries and w ith dreams. The sight of the pump at that moment had waked the echo of their mood. But as 1 plodded tip the road in the May twilight to supper, one of those memories came back with haunting clearness a summer day, n long tramp, the tender w islfulness of young love shy at its own too sudden passion, pas-sion, the plunge of cool water from a pump, and then at twilight half-spoken words, and words unspoken, sweeter still! The amelhyst plow went off the hills that ring our valley, and n far blue peak failed into the gathering dusk. A light shivered off my spirit, too. 1 felt suddenly cold, and the cheery face of Mrs. Temple was the face of a stranger. stran-ger. I felt unutterably lonely and do pressed. My farm was dust and ashes. That evening I savagely turned down n manuscript by a rather well known author, and went to bed with out confessing what was the matte! with me. The matter was, 1 had pumped lip n ghost. At least he can plow a little. 1 And trim trees a little. But ' ' wait until he breaks loose In an entirely different direction and then figure out just how long ' his money is going to last. no Liu CC.MI.MI.I vwv |