Harky glanced up quickly. "Oh. Hello, Pa!"
"I said," Mun repeated, "what ya up to?"
"Why—What do ya mean, Pa?"
"You know blasted well what I mean," Mun growled. "You didn't do but half the first row."
"Oh," Harky might have been a patient teacher instructing a backward pupil. He gestured toward tall trees that, in a couple of hours, would keep the sun from the far half of the corn patch. "The sun, Pa. It's high and warm now, but it'll be high and hot time I get this first half done. Then I can work in shade."
Mun scowled, suspecting a trick and reasonably sure there was one, but unable to fly in the face of such clear-cut logic. If he thought of it, he conceded, he'd plan to hoe the corn that way himself. As he turned on his heel and started walking away, he flung another warning over his shoulder.
"I hope ya don't aim to scoot off an' go fishin'."
"Oh no, Pa!"
Suddenly, because he'd have to hoe only half the corn patch, Harky's burdens became half as heavy. It had worked, as he'd hoped it would, and the most tangled knot in his path was now smooth string. Of course he was not yet clear. But even Mun could not watch him constantly, and once he was near enough the woods to duck into them, Harky would be satisfied with a ninety-second start.
Two hours later, having hoed his way to the edge of the woods, Harky dropped his hoe and started running.