The next morning Jim was at Mrs. Marshall's before breakfast—almost before light, she thought, because through her last nap she had heard his hoe clicking, and when she went out, there was the track of his wheelbarrow through the dew, and the liberated peonies, free of grass, stood each in its rich dark circle of manure.
A little later the Miller twins saw him coming, and Sophy was at the door awaiting him.
"Don't you want a cup o' tea?" she asked.
Sophy looked quite eager. It seemed to her that, with the garden resurrected, something was going to happen. Jim shook his head.
"I'll dig round them rose-bushes," said he. "Then I'll go an' git some dressin'."
"I'll pay for it," said Sophy. "You sha'n't have that to do."
"It's no consequence," returned Jim indifferently. "I can git all I want out o' Squire's old yard. I pay him for it in the fall, cobblin'. It's no great matter, anyways."
Sophy disappeared into the house, and came out again, hurriedly, with a trowel in her hand.
"I don't know but I'll work a mite myself," she said, "if you was to tell me where 'twas worth while to begin."
"Don't ye touch the spring things," said Jim briefly. He was loosening the ground about the roses, with delicacy and dispatch. "Let it be as it may with 'em this year. Come November, we'll overhaul 'em. You might see if you can git some o' the grass out o' that monkshood over there."