We moved down through the orchard and surveyed the pool. I suppose it did look bare and desolate to the outsider, who did not see it, as we did, with the eye of faith–the bare soil green with grass, the lip ringed with iris blades, the shrubbery bordered with a mass of blooms. At any rate, the Eckstroms betrayed no enthusiasm.
We are your neighbours ... you are very fortunate to have us for neighbours
“Mr. Upton spaded all that lawn up himself, and we made the bench together,” cried Stella.
“Well, well, you must like to work,” said Mr. Eckstrom. “It’s so much simpler to sic a few men on the job. Besides, they can usually do it better.”
Stella and I exchanged glances, and she cautioned me with her eyes. But politeness was never my strong point.
“Sometimes,” said I, “it happens that a chap who wants a garden lacks the means to sic a few men on the job. Under those conditions he may perhaps be pardoned for labouring himself.”
There was a slight silence broken by Stella, who said that we were going to get some goldfishes soon.
“We can give them some out of our pool, can’t we, father?” the other girl said, with an evident effort to be neighbourly. “We really have too many.”