Hills of the Shatemuc Part 36

"The soil loses, then?"

"Certainly; it loses a great deal to some crops."

"What, for instance?"

"Wheat is a great feeder," said Winthrop; "so is Indian corn."

"By its being 'a great feeder', you mean that it takes a great deal of the nouris.h.i.+ng quality of the soil?"

"Yes."

"How many things I do not know!" said Elizabeth wistfully.

In the little pause which ensued, Winifred took her chance to say,

"Here's your dinner, Governor."

"Then when the ground is ploughed, is there anything else to be done before it is ready for the wheat?"

"Only harrowing."

Elizabeth mused a little while.

"And how much will the wheat be worth, Winthrop, from all this field?"

"Perhaps two hundred dollars; or two hundred and fifty."

"Two hundred and fifty. -- And then the expenses are something."

"Less to us," said Winthrop, "because we do so much of the labour ourselves."

"Here's your dinner, Winthrop," said Winifred; -- "shall I set it under the tree?"

"Yes -- no, Winifred, -- you may leave it here."

"Then stop and eat it now, Governor, won't you? -- don't wait any longer."

He gave his little sister a look and a little smile, that told of an entirely other page of his life, folded in with the ploughing experience; a word and look very different from any he had given his questioners. Other indications Elizabeth's eye had caught under 'the tree,' -- a single large beech tree which stood by the fence some distance off. Two or three books lay there.

"Do you find time for reading here in the midst of your ploughing, Mr. Winthrop?"

"Not much -- sometimes a little in the noon-spell," he answered, colouring slightly.

They left him and walked on to visit Rufus. Elizabeth led near enough to the tree to make sure, what her keen eye knew pretty well already, that one of the books was the very identical old brown-covered Greek and Latin dictionary that she had seen in the boat. She pa.s.sed on and stood silent by Rufus's plough.

"Well, we've come to see you, Rufus," said Miss Cadwallader.

"I thought you had come to see my brother," said he.

"I didn't come to see either one or the other," said Elizabeth. "I came to see what you are doing."

"I hope you are gratified," said the young man a little tartly.

"What's the use of taking so much trouble to break up the ground?" said Rose.

"Because, unfortunately, there is no way of doing it without trouble," said Rufus, looking unspoken bright things into the furrow at his feet.

"But why couldn't you just make holes in the ground and put the seed in?"

"For a reason that you will appreciate, Miss Rose, if you will put on your bonnet the wrong way, with the front precisely where the back should be."

"I don't understand," -- said the young lady, with something of an inclination to pout, Will's face was so full of understanding.

"It isn't necessary that you should understand such a business," he said, becoming grave. "It is our fortune to do it, and it is yours to have nothing to do with it, -- which is much better."

"I have the happiness to disagree with you, Mr. Rufus," said Elizabeth.

"In what?"

"In thinking that we have nothing to do with it, or that it is not necessary we should understand it."

"I don't see the happiness, Miss Elizabeth; for your disagreement imposes upon you a necessity which I should think better avoided."

"Which ploughs the best, Rufus?" said Rose; -- "you or Winthrop?"

"There is one kind of ploughing," said Rufus biting his lip, "which Winthrop doesn't understand at all."

"And you understand them all, I suppose?"

He didn't answer.

"What is the kind he does not understand, Mr. Rufus?" said Elizabeth.

"Ploughing with another man's heifer."

"Why, what's that, Rufus? I don't know what you mean," said Miss Cadwallader.

No more did Elizabeth, and she had no mind to engage the speaker on unequal terms. She called her cousin off and took the road home, leaving Winifred to speak to her brother and follow at her leisure.

"How different those two people are," she remarked.

"Which one do you like best?"

"Winthrop, a great deal."

"I know you like him the best," said her cousin wilfully.

"Of course you do, for I tell you."