Sol shook his head with wise depreciation.
“Throwin’ away money,” said he.
“Did you ever raise any strawberries?” she inquired, putting down the bonnet, bringing Sol up with a sharp look.
“Reckon I raised as many as Joe ever did, and them mainly with a spoon,” said Sol.
The joke was not entirely new; it could not have been original with Sol by at least three hundred years. But it did 364 very well as an excuse for Sol to laugh. He was always looking for excuses to laugh, that was the one virtue in him. Without his big laugh he would have been an empty sack without a bottom.
“Joe got them rows mighty purty and straight,” said Sol, squinting along the apple trees.
“Yes, he set ’em out accordin’ to geog’aphy,” said she.
“Which?” said Sol.
“Ge-og’a-phy, I said. Didn’t you never hear tell of that before neither, Sol Greening?”
“Oh,” said Sol, lightly, as if that made it all as plain to him as his own cracked thumbs. “How much does Joe reckon he’ll git off of that patch of berries when it begins to bear?”