Percy was compelled to admit that he had an auger and that he was trying to learn all he could about the soil.
He had driven to Mr. Jones' farm because his land happened to be situated in a large area of Leonardtown loam, and he felt free to stop and talk with him because he had found him leaning against the fence, smoking a cob pipe, apparently trying to decide what to do with some small shocks of corn scattered over a field of about fifteen acres.
Percy stepped to the buggy and drew out his soil auger, then returned to the corn field and begun to bore a hole near where Mr. Jones was standing.
"That's the thing," said he, "the same kind of an auger them fellows had three years ago. Still boring holes, are you? Want to bore around over my farm again, do you?"
Percy replied that he would be glad to make borings in several places in order that he might see about what the soil and subsoil were like in that kind of land.
"That's all right, Young Man. Just bore as many holes as you please. I suppose you'd rather do that than work; but you'll have to excuse me. I've got a lot to do today, and it's already getting late. I can't take time again to tell you fellows how to raise tobacco. Good day."
CHAPTER XXVI
ANOTHER LESSON ON TOBACCO
THE old man had stuck his cob pipe in a pocket and filled his mouth with a chew of tobacco.
He walked by Percy's buggy with the tobacco juice drizzling from the corners of his mouth, and turned down the road toward the house.