He did smile this time. “The dust’s poison,” he explained. “It sticks to the leaves, and they eat it with the leaves, and it kills them.”
“Why?” she asked.
He understood that she was interested not in the process but the reason for it. “So they won’t hurt the trees; so the trees will bear better,” he told her.
“Papa doesn’t do that to our trees,” she said.
He turned away, and she thought he smiled. “That’s right,” he agreed.
She looked around her. “And there are lots more apples on your trees than on ours, too.”
“That’s because I dust ’em and spray ’em and take care of them,” he said. “You’ve got to treat an apple tree right if you want it to bear right.”
She came gingerly to his side and inspected the duster and asked questions about it, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the dust; and he answered her questions, warming a little at her interest in that which was dear to him. She perceived that she pleased him, and pretended even greater interest, and smiled at him in her most charming fashion. Turned from the machine to the trees about them, plucked an apple and bit into it and threw it away with a grimace. His engine still coughed and barked; he showed no disposition to shut off its ignition and give his time to her. She discovered a waxy bandage upon one of the trees and asked what it was and he told her it was a graft, and would have added some explanation, but her attention flitted elsewhere.
“Where do you live?” she asked presently. “That house up there?”
“Yes.”