“I think I shall turn out about two acres of the field to pasture, and take in as much more of woodland. I can get the land cleared and fenced with logs by giving the first crop; but if you three boys wish to take the job, I’ll give you the crop for three years; but you must keep the sprouts down and the fire-weed and pigeon-weed, and you may keep the ground you now have the use of two years more.”
They all said they would do it.
“That,” said Peter, “will be to become backwoodsmen, and do just what grandfather did, and we’ll make a chopping bee.”
“No, we won’t; we’ll do it ourselves. If we are to be beholden to the neighbors, I won’t have anything to do with it. I should be ashamed if we three could not do what your grandfather when he was young would have done alone, and not thought it a hard task either,” said James.
“So I say,” replied Bertie, “do it ourselves.”
“But how shall we find out how to do it quickest, and to the best advantage?” said James.
“Father will show us,” said Peter.
“Here sits a venerable gentleman,” said Bertie, making a magnificent gesture in the direction of his grandparent, “who can show us better than father.”
Bertie was prone to be grandiloquent at times, and he had just been reading Patrick Henry’s celebrated speech, and committing it to memory. He then asked his grandfather what time of the year was the best to do it.
“The best time to do it is in June, because then the stumps will bleed freely and be less likely to sprout, and the leaves will draw the sap out of the bodies of the trees and dry them, so that they will burn better, and the leaves will dry and help to burn them; but you can’t do it then, because it will be right in hoeing time; you will have to do it after harvest, and let it lie over till the next summer.”