I had almost completed my first row!
As I returned from dinner, Joe was walking the drills in the potato field, dropping the fertilizer, and the bent form of Mike followed immediately behind him, dropping the seed from a basket. Joe walked with a fine, free stride, and dropped the fertilizer from his hand with a perfectly rhythmic gesture. The father’s bent back behind him was an added touch from Millet. But the lone pine and the blue mountains gave a bright, sharp quality to the landscape which was quite unlike Millet. The picture held me, however, as do the Frenchman’s canvases. Even my knowledge of Mike’s comfortable home and happy disposition did not rob it of that subtle pathos of agricultural toil. Why the pathos, I asked myself? Mike is healthy and happy. No toil is more healthful. I’m working as hard as Mike, and having a glorious time! To be sure, I’m working my own land, but Mike, too, has a garden of his own, yet doubtless looks as pathetic in it. I could find no solution, unless it be that instinctive belief of a city-bred civilization that all joys are urban. Just then, however, Mike straightened up with a laugh, and the pathos vanished.
“So the pathos,” thought I, as I caught myself instinctively straightening, too, “is a matter of spinal sympathy!”
This was a most comforting reflection, and I hastened to investigate Hard Cider’s morning work. The kitchen floor was ready to relay. Over the old planking he had spread tar paper, then carefully adjusted a light, half-inch framework, and on top of this was laying the new floor.
“Thet’ll keep out the cold,” he said briefly, carefully lifting the lid of the stove and spitting into the fire pot.
I examined the framework on which he was laying the new floor. It was as carefully jointed as if it were the floor itself.
“Why so much pains with this?” I asked, pointing with my toe.
“Why not?” Hard Cider replied, as the March Hare replied to Alice.
I was braver than Alice. “But it doesn’t show,” I said.
“Somebody might take the floor up,” he retorted, with some scorn.