FIFTH PERIOD
Buying a house when spring is young involves a lot of thought and anxiety, from which is developed a high nervous pressure. You alternate days of earnest application and enforced recuperation.
One begins to learn, too, how much he doesn't know.
Our yard, we found, was admirably adapted to quarry purposes, or would make an excellent clay bank. William told us he would level up the back lot and then put on a top soil and add a sort of compost of manure and loam, in which we could plant things. I reserved a square 18 by 25 feet for a patent wire pigeon fly.
"Why will you raise pigeons?" asked my wife.
"I will raise pigeons," I replied with dignity, "for their giblets. I love pigeon giblets. You may have the squibs."
"You mean squabs," said my wife.
"I said squibs," I insisted stanchly. "You should say squabs," suggested my wife mildly. "I will have squibs or nothing," I replied, as becoming master of the house, and squibs it was. So be it known, we are going to raise squibs.
"And I," said my wife, "shall raise a tomato. The back of the lot is in an all-day sun, and tomatoes thrive in the sun."