But there he was in blue overalls, sinking his spade deep for settings, digging ditches and driving furrows through the virgin soil, while the masons and carpenters built his ranch house.
"They are straight furrows, too!" Jack declared.
"Passably so!" answered Mary.
"And look at the blisters!" he continued, exhibiting his puffy palms.
"You seem to think blisters a remarkable human phenomenon, a sensational novelty to a laboring population!"
"Now, would you advise pricking?" he asked, with deference to her judgment.
"It is so critical in your case that you ought to consult a doctor rather than take lay advice."
"Jim Galway says that the thorough way, I mulched my soil before putting in my first crop of alfalfa is a model for all future settlers," he ventured.
She remarked that Jim was always encouraging to new-comers, and remarked this in a way that implied that some new-comers possibly needed hazing.
"And I am up at dawn and hard at it for six hours before midday."