"Yes, it came in Wednesday's mail, and there is a letter from the University of Illinois and two others that Grandma says must be from a lady. Papa says he is anxious to know what results would be found in the chemist's report. May I listen while you tell papa about it? Indeed, I am extremely interested to know if anything can be done to make our farm produce such crops as it used to when grandmother was a little girl."
"Still I fear you will find it a very tiresome subject," said Percy. "It is, as a rule, not an easy matter to adopt a system of permanent improvement on land that has been depleted by a century or more of exhaustive husbandry. but you will be very welcome not only to listen but to counsel also. My mother can measure difficulties in advance better than most men; and I believe it is true that women will deliberately plan and follow a course involving greater hardship and privation than men would undertake. I cannot conceive of any man doing what my mother has done for me."
Adelaide glanced at Percy as he spoke of his mother. Something in his words or voice seemed to reveal to her a depth of feeling, a wealth of affection akin to reverence, such as she had never recognized before.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE ULTIMATE COMPARISON
WILKES was at the side gate to meet Adelaide and Percy, and the grandmother stood at the door as they reached the veranda.
"Lucky for us you got back before the Thanksgiving scraps are all gone," she said to Percy, "but I suppose even our Thanksgiving fare will be poor picking after you've been living in Washington and Boston."
"Even the Thanksgiving dinner on the boat was not equal to this," said Percy, as they sat down to the table loaded with such an abundance of good things as is rarely seen except on the farmer's table. The "scraps," if such there were, had no appearance of being left-overs, and there was monster turkey, browned to perfection and sizzling hot, placed before Mr. West ready for the carving knife.
Percy had opened the letter from the chemist, but said to Mr. West that it would take him an hour or more to compute the results to the form of the actual elements and reduce them to pounds per acre in order to make possible a direct comparison between the requirements of crops, on the one hand, and the invoice of the soil and application of plant food in manure and fertilizers, on the other hand.
"Please let me help you make the computations," said Adelaide, much to the surprise of her parents, who knew that she took no interest in affairs pertaining to farming. "I like mathematics and will promise not to make any mistakes if you will tell me how to do some of the figuring."