Part 18 (1/2)

I looked into her eager, wistful face, but said, firmly: ”Not now, dear. The sun is too hot. Toward night, perhaps, I'll let you do a little. By helping mamma in the house you are doing your part.”

We made good progress, and the two younger children speedily learned the knack of working carefully, so as not to disturb the little vegetables. I soon found that weeding was back-aching work for me, and therefore ”spelled” myself by hoeing out the s.p.a.ces between the rows.

By the time the music of the dinner-bell sounded, hosts of our enemies were slain.

Mr. Jones, true to his promise, was on hand at one o'clock with his cultivator, and began with the corn, which was now a few inches high.

Merton and I followed with hoes, uncovering the tender shoots on which earth had been thrown, and dressing out the soil into clean flat hills.

As our neighbor had said, it was astonis.h.i.+ng how much work the horse-cultivator performed in a short time. I saw that it would be wise for us, another year, to plant in a way that would permit the use of horse-power. Even in the garden this method should be followed as far as possible.

Mr. Jones was not a man of half-way measures. He remained helping us, till he had gone through the corn, once each way, twice between the long rows of potatoes, then twice through all the raspberry rows, giving us two full days of his time altogether.

I handed him a dollar in addition to his charge, saying that I had never paid out money with greater satisfaction.

”Well,” he said, with a short, dry laugh, ”I'll take it this time, for my work is sufferin' at home, but I didn't want you to get discouraged.

Now, keep the hoes flyin', and you're ahead once more. Junior's at it early and late, I can tell ye.”

”So I supposed, for we've missed him.”

”Good reason. When I'm through with him he's ready enough to crawl into his little bed.”

So were we for a few days, in our winning fight with the weeds. One hot afternoon, about three o'clock, I saw that Merton was growing pale, and beginning to lag, and I said, decidedly: ”Do you see that tree there?

Go and lie down under it till I call you.”

”I guess I can stand it till night,” he began, his pride a little touched.

”Obey orders! I am captain.”

In five minutes he was fast asleep. I threw my coat over him, and sat down, proposing to have a half-hour's rest myself. My wife came out with a pitcher of cool b.u.t.ter-milk and nodded her head approvingly at us.

”Well, my thoughtful Eve,” I said, ”I find that our modern Eden will cost a great many back-aches.”

”If you will only be prudent like this, you may save me a heart-ache.

Robert, you are ambitious, and unused to this kind of work. Please don't ever be so foolish as to forget the comparative value of vegetables and yourselves. Honestly now” (with one of her saucy looks), ”I'd rather do with a few bushels less, than do without you and Merton;” and she sat down and kept me idle for an hour.

Then Merton got up, saying that he felt as ”fresh as if he had had a night's rest,” and we accomplished more in the cool of the day than if we had kept doggedly at work.

I found that Winnie and Bobsey required rather different treatment. For a while they got on very well, but one morning I set them at a bed of parsnips about which I was particular. In the middle of the forenoon I went to the garden to see how they were getting on. Shouts of laughter made me fear that all was not well, and I soon discovered that they were throwing lumps of earth at each other. So absorbed were they in their untimely and mischievous fun that I was not noticed until I found Bobsey sitting plump on the vegetables, and the rows behind both the children very shabbily cleaned, not a few of the little plants having been pulled up with the weeds.

Without a word I marched them into the house, then said: ”Under arrest till night. Winnie, you go to your room. I shall strap Bobsey in his chair, and put him in the parlor by himself.”

The exchange of the hot garden for the cool rooms seemed rather an agreeable punishment at first, although Winnie felt the disgrace somewhat. When, at dinner, nothing but a cup of water and a piece of dry bread was taken to them, Bobsey began to howl, and Winnie to look as if the affair was growing serious. Late in the afternoon, when she found that she was not to gather the eggs or feed her beloved chickens, she, too, broke down and sobbed that she ”wouldn't do so any more.”

Bobsey also pleaded so piteously for release, and promised such saint-like behavior, that I said: ”Well, I will remit the rest of your punishment and put you on trial. You had no excuse for your mischief this morning, for I allow you to play the greater part of every afternoon, while Merton must stand by me the whole of the week.”

My touch of discipline brought up the morale of my little squad effectually for a time. The next afternoon even the memory of trouble was banished by the finding of the first wild strawberries. Exultation and universal interest prevailed as cl.u.s.ters of green and red berries were handed around to be smelled and examined. ”Truly,” my wife remarked, ”even roses can scarcely equal the fragrance of the wild strawberry.”

From that day forward, for weeks, it seemed as if we entered on a diet of strawberries and roses. The old-fas.h.i.+oned bushes of the latter, near the house, had been well trimmed, and gave large, fine buds in consequence, while Mousie, Winnie, and Bobsey gleaned every wild berry that could be found, beginning with the sunny upland slopes and following the aromatic fruit down to the cool, moist borders of the creek.

”Another year,” I said, ”I think you will be tired even of strawberries, for we shall have to pick early and late.”