“But it’s natural, after all. You see they’ve run their farms their own way all their lives, and it’s the way they learned from their fathers. So it isn’t very strange that they’re apt to feel that they know more, from all that practice and experiment, than city people who are farming scientifically.”
“Does your father enjoy farming?”
“He says he does—and it’s a curious thing that he makes that farm pay its way, even allowing for a whole lot of things he does that aren’t really necessary. That’s what proves, you see, that his theories are right—they pay.
“Of course, he could afford to lose money on it, and you can’t make a whole lot of those farmers in our neighborhood believe that he doesn’t. So now he is having the books of the farm fixed up so that any of the farmers around can see them, and find out for themselves how things are run.”
Tired as the girls of the Camp Fire had been the night before, they were wonderfully refreshed by their night’s sleep. The weather was much more pleasant than it had been, and a brisk wind had driven off much of the smoke that still remained when they reached the Pratt farm as a reminder of the scourge of fire. So the conditions for walking were good, and Eleanor Mercer set a round, swinging pace as they started off.
“I’ll really be glad to get out of this burned district. It’s awfully gloomy, isn’t it, Bessie?” said Dolly.
“Yes, especially when you realize what it means to the people who live in the path of the fire,” answered Bessie. “Seeing the Pratts as they were when we came up has given me an altogether new idea of these forest fires.”
“Yes. That’s what I mean. It’s bad enough to see the forest ruined, but when you think of the houses, and all the other things that are burned, too, why, it seems particularly dreadful.”
“Tom Pratt told me that a whole lot of animals were caught in the fire, too—chipmunks, and squirrels, and deer. That seems dreadful.”
“Oh, what a shame! I should think they could manage to get away, Bessie. Don’t you suppose they try?”