"Have you got through sowing?" said his wife.
"Sowing! — no! — Winthrop, I guess you must go into the garden to-morrow — I can't attend to anything else till I get my grain in."
"Won't you plant some sweet corn this year, Mr. Landholm? — it's a great deal better for cooking."
"Well, I don't know — I guess the field corn's sweet enough. I haven't much time to attend to sugar things. What I look for is substantials."
"Aren't sweet things substantial, sir?" said Winthrop.
"Well — yes, — in a sort they are," said his father laughing, and looking at the little fat creature who was still in her brother's arms and giving him the charge of her supper as well as his own. "I know some sweet things I shouldn't like to do without."
"Talking of substantials," said Mrs. Landholm, "there's wood wanting to be got. I am almost out. I had hardly enough to cook supper."
"Don't want much fire in this weather," said the father, "However — we can't get along very well without supper. — Rufus, I guess you'll have to go up into the woods to-morrow with the ox-sled — you and Sam Doolittle — back of the pine wood — you'll find enough dead trees there, I guess."
"I think," said Rufus, "that if you think of it, what are called substantial things are the least substantial of any — they are only the scaffolding of the other."
"Of what other?" said his father.