“He watched the way you tilled your crop, and he believed so much shallow cultivating was wrong, and said so. But he says you beat him on poor ground; and when I tell him what that lowland figures up, he'll throw up his hands.
“And I'm going to take a course in fertilizers, farm management, and the chemistry of soils,” continued Henry.
“Just as you say, I believe we have been planting the wrong crops on the right land! Anyway, I'll find out. I believe we've got a good farm, but we're not getting out of it what we should.”
“Well, Henry,” admitted Hiram, slowly, “nothing's pleased me so much since I came into this neighborhood, as to hear you say this. You get all you can at the experiment station this winter, and I believe that your father will soon begin to believe that there is something in 'book farming', after all.”
If it had not been for the hair-hung sword over them, Mrs. Atterson and Hiram would have taken great delight in the generous crops that had been vouchsafed to them.
“Still, we can't complain,” said the old lady, “and for the first time for more'n twenty years I'm going to be really thankful at Thanksgiving time.”
“Oh, I believe you!” cried Sister, who heard her. “No boarders.”
“Nope,” said the old lady, quietly. “You're wrong. For we're going to have boarders on Thanksgiving Day. I've writ to Crawberry. Anybody that's in the old house now that wants to come to eat dinner with us, can come. I'm going to cook the best dinner I ever cooked—and make a milkpail full of gravy.”
“I know,” said the good old soul, shaking her head, “that them two old maids I sold out to have half starved them boys. We ought to be able to stand even Fred Crackit, and Mr. Peebles, one day in the year.”
“Well!” returned Sister, thoughtfully. “If you can stand 'em I can. I never did think I could forgive 'em all—so mean they was to me—and the hair-pulling and all.