“Well, I should think you would!” exclaimed that lady, tartly. “Pigs has got some sense.”
Hiram laughed at this. “You'll find the pigs demanding gravy, just the same—and very urgent about it they are, too,” he told them.
But he was glad to give the small chores over into their hands, and went to work immediately to prepare for putting in the early crops.
He had already cleared the rubbish off the piece of ground selected for the garden, and had burned it. He hauled out stable manure from the barnyard and gave an acre and a half of this piece of land a good dressing.
The other half-acre was for early potatoes, and he wished to put the manure in the furrow for them, so did not top dress that strip of land. The frost was pretty well out of the ground by now; but even if some remained, plowing this high, well-drained piece would do no harm. Beside, Hiram was eager to get in early crops.
It was a still, hazy morning when he geared the old horse to the plow and headed him into the garden piece. He had determined to plow the entire plot at once, and instead of plowing “around and around” had paced off his lands and started in the middle, plowing “gee” instead of “haw”.
This system is a bit more particular, and hard for the careless plowman; but it overcomes that unsightly “dead-furrow” in the middle of a field and brings the “finishing-furrow” on the edge. This insures better surface drainage and is a more scientific method of tillage.
The plow was rusty and the point was not in the very best condition; but after the first few rounds the share was cleaned off, and it began to slip through the moist earth and roll it over in a long, brown ribbon behind him.
Hiram Strong clung to the plow handles, a rope-rein in each hand, and watched the plow and the horse and the land ahead with an eye as keen as that of a river-pilot.
As the strip of turned earth grew wider and longer Sister ran out to see him work. She watched the plow turn the mulch into the furrow and lay the brown, greasy mold upon it, with wide-open eyes.