"What's the good?" demanded the boy.
"Why, the folks in Greensboro vie with each other to see who shall have the best-looking yard. Your mother hasn't many flowers——"
"Them dratted hens scratch up all the flowers I plant," sighed Aunt 'Mira. "I give up all hopes of havin' posies till Jason mends the henyard fence."
"Now you say yourself the hens only lay when they're rangin' around,
'Mira," observed Uncle Jason, mildly.
"Ya-as. They lay," admitted Aunt 'Mira. "But I don't git more'n ha'f of what they lay. They steal their nests so. Ol' Speckle brought off a brood only yesterday. I'd been wonderin' where that hen was layin' for a month."
"But, anyway, we can rake the yard and trim the edges of the walk,"
Janice said to Marty.
"Ya-as, we kin," admitted Marty, grinning. "But will we?"
Janice, however, never lost her temper with this hobbledehoy cousin. Marty could be coaxed, if not driven. After breakfast she urged him out to the shed, and they overhauled the conglomeration of rusted and decrepit hand tools, which had been gathered by Uncle Jason during forty years of desultory farming.
"Here're three rakes," said Marty. "All of 'em have lost teeth, an'—Hi tunket! that one's got a broken handle."
"But there are two which are usable," laughed Janice. "Come on, Marty. Let's rake the front yard all over. You know it will please your mother. And then you can tote the rubbish away in the wheelbarrow while I trim the edges of the front walk."