“You know the way I have of poking about in all sorts of odd corners wherever I am,” Mark began. “Well, while we were in Anchorage I got to prowling round and stumbled upon a small greenhouse set way back on a side street where very few people would see it.
“Well, you know you’ll always find something interesting in a greenhouse. Some new vegetable or flower, a strange form of moss or fungus, or even a new species of plant pest. So I went in.”
“And you—”
“I found tomato plants all in blossom, dozens and dozens of them in pots.”
“But why—”
“That’s what I asked the man—why? He said he’d raised them for some gardener in a town down south, half way to Seattle. Something had gone wrong with the man or his garden. He couldn’t use them so—”
“There they were.”
“Yes,” Mark agreed with uncommon enthusiasm. “There they were, and there, I am quite sure, they are still. They can be bought cheap, probably four hundred plants in pots. Must be tomatoes big as marbles on them by now.”
“And you know,” he went on excitedly, “when you set out potted plants the blossoms and small tomatoes do not drop off, they just keep on growing. And here, where the sun will be shining almost twenty-four hours a day, they should just boom along. Have ripe tomatoes in six weeks. Then how those well-to-do people in Anchorage, Seward and Fairbanks will go after them! Tomatoes!” he exclaimed, spreading his arms wide. “Bushels and bushels of tomatoes; ripe, red gold!”
“But if there is a frost?”