Part 9 (1/2)

Corn--didn't Hoover urge people to eat corn? In helping the corn crop, she too might feel herself feeding the Belgians.

Gertrude linked her arm in her slender cousin's as they left the table. ”I'll show you where the tools are,” she said. ”Harry runs the cultivator in the field, but we use hand-hoes in the garden.”

”You will have to show me more than that,” said Elliott. ”What does hoeing do to corn, anyhow?”

”Keeps down the weeds that eat up the nourishment in the soil,”

recited Gertrude glibly, ”and by stirring up the ground keeps in the moisture. You like to know the reason for things, too, don't you? I'm glad. I always do.”

It wasn't half bad, with a hoe over her shoulder, in company with other boys and girls, to swing through the dewy morning to the garden.

Priscilla had joined the squad when she heard Elliott was to be in it, and with Stannard and Tom the three girls made a little procession. It proved a simple enough matter to wield a hoe. Elliott watched the others for a few minutes, and if her hills did not take on as workmanlike an appearance as Tom's and Gertrude's, or even as Priscilla's, they all a.s.sured her practice would mend the fault.

”You'll do it all right,” Priscilla encouraged her.

”Sure thing!” said Tom. ”We might have a race and see who gets his row done first.”

”No races for me, yet,” said Elliott. ”It would be altogether too tame. I'd qualify for the b.o.o.by prize without trying. But the rest of you may race, if you want to.”

”Just wait!” prophesied Stannard darkly. ”Wait an hour or two and see how you like hoeing.”

Elliott laughed. In the cool morning, with the hoe fresh in her hand, she thought of fatigue as something very far away. Stan was always a little inclined to croak. The thing was easy enough.

”Run along, little boy, to your row,” she admonished him. ”Can't you see that I'm busy?”

Elliott hoed briskly, if a bit awkwardly, and painstakingly removed every weed. The freshly stirred earth looked dark and pleasant; the odor of it was good, too. She compared what she had done with what she hadn't, and the contrast moved her to new activity. But after a time--it was not such a long time, either, though it seemed hours--she thought it would be pleasant to stop. The motion of the hoe was monotonous. She straightened up and leaned on the handle and surveyed her fellow-workers. Their backs looked very industrious as they bent at varying distances across the garden. Even Stannard had left her behind.

Gertrude abandoned her row and came and inspected Elliott's. ”That looks fine,” she said, ”for a beginner. You must stop and rest whenever you're tired. Mother always tells us to begin a thing easy, not to tire ourselves too much at first. She won't let us girls work when the sun's too hot, either.”

Elliott forced a smile. If she had done what she wished to, she would have thrown down her hoe and walked off the field. But for the first time in her life she didn't feel quite like letting herself do what she wished to.

What would these new cousins think of her if she abandoned a task as abruptly as that? But what good did her hoeing do?--a few scratches on the border of this big garden-patch. It couldn't matter to the Belgians or the Germans or Hoover or anybody else whether she hoed or didn't hoe. Perhaps, if every one said that, even of garden-patches--but not every one would say it. Some people knew how to hoe. Presumably some people liked hoeing. Goodness, how long this row was! Would she ever, _ever_ reach the end?

Priscilla bobbed up, a moist, flushed Priscilla. ”That looks nice. You haven't got very far yet, have you? Never mind. Things go a lot faster after you've done 'em a while. Why, when I first tried to play the piano, my fingers went so slow, they just made me ache. Now they skip along real quick.”

Elliott leaned on her hoe. ”Do you play the piano?”

”Oh, yes! Mother taught me. Good-by. I must get back to my row.”

”Do you like hoeing?” Elliott called after her.

”I like to get it done.” The small figure skipped nimbly away.

”'Get it done!'” Elliott addressed the next clump of waving green blades, pessimism in her voice. ”After one row, isn't there another, and another, and _another_, forever?” She slashed into a mat of chickweed with venom.

”I knew you'd get tired,” said Stannard, at her elbow. ”Come on over to those trees and rest a bit. Sun's getting hot here.”

Elliott looked at the clump of trees on the edge of the field. Their shade invited like a beckoning hand. Little beads of perspiration stood on her forehead. A warm la.s.situde spread through her body, turning her muscles slack. Hadn't Gertrude said Aunt Jessica didn't let them work in too hot a sun?

”You're tired; quit it!” urged Stannard.