The Idyl of Twin Fires

by Walter Prichard Eaton

In the woodshed I found Mike cutting up the seed potatoes into baskets.

“Good mornin’,” he said. “Joe’s got the tooth harrer workin’, and we’ll be plantin’ this afternoon.”

I started then toward the orchard, only to meet the boss plumber arriving. With him I went down cellar to decide on the position for the heater. “Of course you’re going to have hot water?” said the boss.

“Am I?” said I. “I loathe radiators. They spoil the rooms. Wouldn’t you, as a great concession, let me have old-fashioned hot air?”

“You can have anything you want, of course,” the plumber replied, being, like most of his kind, without a sense of humour, “but to get register pipes upstairs in this old house you’ll spoil your rooms more than with radiators. We have some very ornamental radiators.”

“There ain’t no such animal,” said I.

But I ended with hot water. There were to be four radiators downstairs and three upstairs, one in the bathroom, one in the hall, and one in a chamber. The other chambers, having fireplaces, I decided needed no further heat, though the plumber was mournfully skeptical. That made seven in all, and did not call for a large heater. After much dickering and argument, the plumber consented to leave the old copper pump at the sink, in addition to the faucets. I refused to let that pump go, with its polished brass knob on the iron handle, even though the sink was to be replaced by a porcelain one. As the bathroom was almost over the kitchen, and as the house already had a good cesspool, by some happy miracle, the work was comparatively simple, and the plumber left to get his men and supplies.

Again I started for the orchard. Already the buds were swelling on the old trees, and the haze of nascent foliage hung over them. I had four and a half rows to trim, and then the whole orchard to go over with paint pot and gouge and cement. I had never trimmed a tree in my life till the day before, yet I felt that I was doing a better job than Bert had done on his trees, for Bert’s idea of pruning was to cut off all the limbs he could reach near the trunk, often leaving a stub four inches long when it didn’t happen to be convenient to saw closer. He made his living, and a good one, selling milk and cauliflowers–he had thirty acres down to cauliflowers, and shipped them to New York–but, like so many New England farmers, he couldn’t or wouldn’t understand the simple science of tree culture. Anybody can learn tree culture with a little application to the right books or models and a little imagination to see into the future. A good tree pruner has to be a bit of an architect. I thought so then in my pride, at any rate, and it turned out I was right. Right or wrong, however, I went at my job that morning with a mighty zest, and soon had a second barrier of dead wood heaped upon the ground.

As I worked, I thought how this orchard must be trimmed and cleaned up first, but how the fine planting weather was upon us, too, and I ought to be getting my garden seeds in, if I was to have any flowers. I thought, also, of all my manuscripts to be read. A nervous fit seized me, and I worked frantically. “How on earth shall I ever find time for all I’ve got to do?” I said to myself, sending the saw into a dead limb with a vicious jab. But I soon discovered that nervous haste wasn’t helping any. In my excitement, I cleaned off all the suckers on a limb, and suddenly realized that I should have left two or three of the strongest to make new wood, as the limb itself was past bearing. I thought of Mike’s reflection, that he kept his thoughts on his gardening. So I calmed down, and gave my whole attention to my work, making a little study of each limb, deciding what I wished to leave for future development, and what would give the best decorative effect to my slope as well. You can really trim an old apple tree into a thing of gnarled power and quaint charm by a little care.

Tap, tap, tap, came the sound of hammers from my house. The plumbers had returned, and I could hear them rattling pipes. The water company was digging for the connections. Now and then a shout from Joe to the horses was wafted down from the plateau. A pair of persistent song sparrows, building in an evergreen by the brook, kept up a steady song. A robin sang in the next tree to me. The sun beat warmly on my neck. And I sawed and pruned, keeping steadily to my job, treating each tree and limb as a separate and important problem, till I heard the hammers cease at noon.