"Huh!" grunted Marty. "Ain't that jest like a girl?"
Grudgingly, however, as his interest in Janice was shown, the girl appreciated the fact that Marty was warming toward her. Intermittently, as he plodded up and down the potato rows, they conversed and became better acquainted.
"Daddy has a friend who owns a farm outside of Greensboro, and I loved to go out there," Janice ventured. "I always said I'd love to live on a farm."
"Huh!" came Marty's usual explosive grunt. "You'll git mighty tired of livin' on this one—I bet you!"
"Why should I? You've got horses, and cows, and chickens, and—and all that—haven't you?"
"Well, we've got a pair of nags that you can plow with. But they ain't fit for driving. Jim Courteval, who lives up the road a piece, now he's got some hossflesh wuth owning. But our old crowbaits ain't nothing."
"Don't you love to take care of them—and brush them—and all that?" cried the girl, eagerly.
"Not much I don't! I reckon if old Sam and Lightfoot felt a currycomb once more they'd have a fit. And you ought to see our cow! Gee! Dad tried to trade her the other day for a stack of fodder, and the man wouldn't have her. He'll have ter trade her off 'sight unseen' if he ever gits rid of her. Ye see, we never do raise feed enough, an' she certainly come through the winter in bad shape; an' our paster fence is down in places so we can't let her get the grass."
"Why, the poor creature!" murmured Janice. "Why don't you mend the fence, Marty, so the cow can feed in the pasture?"
"Me? Huh! I guess not," snarled Marty, starting down the potato row again. "Let the old man do it."