“Well, I’m trusting you,” said I. “But next year we’ll start earlier, just the same. I don’t want to be with the next man. I want to beat him. I don’t see why that isn’t what a farmer should do as well as a merchant.”
“Sure, it is,” said Mike, “only the God almighty don’t like it, and sinds frosts down upon yer presoomin’.”
“You talk like a Calvinist,” I laughed.
“Sure, I dunno what that is,” Mike replied. “How much of this last plantin’ of corn shall I put in? It’s Stowell’s Evergreen. Maybe it’s the frosts will get it all, come September.”
“We’ll take a chance,” said I. “I’m a gambler. Put in all you’ve got room for.”
“Yes, sor,” said he, “and it’s pea brush we’ll be needin’ soon for them early peas I planted late. Is it Joe I shall sind to cut some in the pasture lot behind the barn?”
I hadn’t thought of my ten-acre pasture across the road. In fact, I had scarcely been in it. “What’s there to cut?” I asked.
“Poverty birch,” said Mike. “Sure, it’s walkin’ up from the brook like it was a weed, which it are, and eatin’ the good grass up. The pasture will be better for it out.”
“Cut away, then,” said I. “But, mind you, no other trees!”
I went back to my sundial, between two rows of cauliflower plants Bert had given to me, and which Mike had set out thus early for an experiment, between threads of sprouting radishes, lines of onion sets, and other succulent evidences of the season to come. As I started to mark out the beds around the pedestal, I found myself wishing Miss Goodwin were there to advise me. I made a few marks on the ground, surveyed the pattern, didn’t like it, could think of nothing better, and resolved to await her return. I took a few steps toward the house. Then I stopped.