“Good night, sor,” he sang cheerily back.
Upon the plateau I saw my rusty old disk harrow–a legacy from Milt–standing on the brown earth. The furrows had disappeared. The field was almost ready for planting. I took a bath, rubbing my ribs and aching shoulders very tenderly, ate my supper hungrily, and settled down to my manuscripts. In ten minutes I was nodding.
“Good heavens!” said I, “this will never do! I’ll have to get up in the morning and work.”
So I bade Mrs. Temple wake me when she got up at five.
“Well,” I reflected, as I tumbled into bed, “you can’t have everything and a country estate, too. Fancy me getting up at five o’clock!”
Chapter IV
I PUMP UP A GHOST
As A matter of fact, I didn’t. I went to sleep again at five, and slept till seven. It’s not nearly so easy as it sounds in books to change all your habits of life. But I resolved to try again the next morning, and meanwhile to keep awake that night at all costs. Then, after breakfast, I set out for my farm. Hard Cider would be there with the estimate. The rest of that row of orchard was waiting for me. Mike and Joe would finish harrowing the potato field and begin planting. I almost ran down the road!
What is there about remodelling an old house, renovating an old orchard, planting a fresh-ploughed field, even building a chicken coop, which inspires us to such enthusiasm? I have written a few things of which I am not ashamed, and taken great joy in their creation. But it was not the same joy as that I take in making even one new garden bed, and not in the least comparable to the joy of those first glorious days when my old house was shaping up anew. It has often seemed to me almost biological, this delight in domestic planning both inside and outside of the dwelling–as though it were foreordained that man should have each his own plot of earth, which calls out a primal and instinctive æstheticism like nothing else, and is coupled with the domestic instinct to reinforce it. I have known men deaf and blind to every other form of beauty who clung with a loyal and redeeming love to the flowers in their dooryard.
As I came into my own dooryard, I found Hard Cider unloading lumber. He nodded briefly, and handed me a dirty slip of paper–his estimate. Evidently he, too, had paternally taken me over, for this estimate included the plumber’s bill for a heater, the water connections for house and barn, a boiler on the kitchen range, and the bathroom. The bill would come to $3,000. That far exceeded my own estimate, and I had still the painters to reckon with! However, Hard’s bill seemed fair enough, for Bert had told me the price of lumber, and there was a lot of digging to connect with the town main. I nodded “Go ahead,” and opened the door. In three minutes he and his assistant were busily at work.