As he spoke, his eye glanced at the uncouth implement I was using, and reaching forth his hand he took it from me. Examining it carefully, a smile came over his handsome face, and he shook his head, as if thinking that would never do. It was one of the old tools my father had used, heavy and tiresome for a woman's hand, with a blade absurdly large for working among strawberries, and so dull as to hack off instead of cutting up a weed at one stroke. Fred had undertaken to keep our hoes sharp for us, but this season he had somehow neglected to put them in order.
"This will never do, Miss," he observed. "Your hoe is heavy enough to break you down. This is not exercise such as a lady should take, but downright hard work. I must get you such as my sisters use; and now I mean to do your day's work for you."
Then, taking my place, he proceeded during the entire morning to act as my substitute. We were surprised at his affability, as well as at his industry. It was evident that grubbing up weeds was no greater novelty to him than to us. All the time he had something pleasant to say, and thus conversation and work went on together: for, not thinking it polite to leave him to labor alone, I procured a rake, and contrived to keep him company in turning up the weeds to the sun, the more effectually to kill them.
Now I had never been able to learn the botanical names of any of these pests of the garden, nor whether any of them were useful to man, nor how it was that the earth was so crowded with them. Neither did I know the annuals from the perennials, nor why one variety was invariably found flourishing in moist ground, while another preferred a drier situation. If I had had a desire to learn these interesting particulars of things that were my daily acquaintances, I had neither books to consult nor time to devote to them.
But it was evident from Mr. Logan's conversation that he was not only a horticulturist, but an accomplished botanist. Both my mother and myself were surprised at the new light which he threw upon the subject. I was tugging with my fingers at a great dandelion which had come up directly between two strawberry-plants, trying to pull it up, when its brittle leaves broke off in my hand, leaving the root in the ground. Mr. Logan, seeing the operation, observed,—
"No use in cutting it off; the root must come out, or it will grow thicker and stronger, and plague you every season"; and plying the corner of his hoe all round the neck of the dandelion, so as to loosen the earth a considerable depth, he thrust his fingers down, seized the root, and drew forth a thick white fibre at least a foot long.
"That fellow must be three years old," said he, holding it up for me to examine. "Very likely you have cut off the top every season, supposing you were killing it. But the dandelion can be exterminated only by destroying the root.
"Then," he continued, "there is the dock, more prolific of seeds than the dandelion, and the red-sorrel, worse than either, because its roots travel under ground in all directions, throwing up suckers at every inch, while its tops are hung with myriads of seeds,—the hoe will never exterminate these pests. You must get rid of the roots; throw them out to such a sun as this, and then you may hope to be somewhat clear of them."
All this was entirely new to me, as well as the botanical names, with which he seemed to be as familiar as with the alphabet. I had often wondered how it was that the dandelions in our garden never diminished in number, though not one had usually been allowed to go to seed. I now saw, that, instead of destroying the plant itself, we had only been removing the tops.
"But how is it, Mr. Logan," I inquired, "that the weeds are everywhere more numerous than the flowers?"