Natalie: A Garden Scout Part 11

"Rake-Nuthin'! all its teeth would crack off ef you tried to drag a big rock with it. Nop-one has to use plain old hands to pick up rocks and carry them to the side of the field."

"Maybe we'd better wear gloves, Jimmy," suggested Natalie in a whisper.

"Yes, indeed! I'm glad we brought some rubber gloves with us in case of need in the house. I never dreamed of using them for this," returned Mrs. James.

She turned and went indoors for the gloves while Farmer Ames drove on to the barns. Natalie followed the wagon, because she felt she could not afford to lose a moment away from this valuable ally in the new plan of work.

"Mr. Ames, as soon as our garden is ploughed, can it be seeded?" asked she, when the farmer began to unhitch the horse.

"That depends. Ef your sile is rich and fertile, then you'se kin plant as soon as it is smoothed out. First the rocks must come out, then the ground is broken up fine, and last you must rake, over and over, until the earth is smooth as a table."

"What plants ought I to choose first? You see it is so late in the season, I fear my garden will be backward," said Natalie.

"Nah-don't worry 'bout that, sis," remarked the farmer. "Becus we had a cold wet spring and the ground never got warm enough fer seeds until ten days ago. Why, I diden even waste my time and money tryin' out any seeds till last week. I will gain more in the end because the sun-rays are warm enough this month to show results in my planting. Ef I hed seeded all my vegetables in that cold spell in May they would hev laid dormant and, mebbe, rotted. So you don't need to worry about its bein' late this year. Some years that is true-we kin seed in early May, but not this time."

"I'm so glad for that! Now I can race with other farmers around here and see who gets the best crops," laughed Natalie.

"What'cha goin' to plant down?" asked Mr. Ames, curious to hear how this city girl would begin.

"Oh, I was going to leave that to your judgment," returned she navely.

"Ha, ha, ha!" was the farmer's return to this answer. Then he added: "Wall now, I kin give you some young tomater plants and cabbiges an'

cauliflower slips. Them is allus hard to seed so I plants mine in a hot-bed in winter and raises enough to sell to the countryside fer plantin' in the spring. I got some few dozen left what you are welcome to, ef you want 'em."

"Oh, fine! I certainly do want them," exclaimed Natalie. "Can I go to your house, now, and get them?"

"Better leave 'em planted 'til you wants to put 'em in your garden. They will wilt away ef you leave 'em out of sile fer a day er night. Besides, this stonin' work will keep you busy to-day."

Mrs. James now joined them, and handed Natalie a pair of rubber gloves.

Farmer Ames stared at them in surprise for he had never seen anyone wear gloves while gardening-at least, not in Greenville.

As he drove Bob and the plough to the garden-s.p.a.ce, Natalie and Mrs.

James followed, talking eagerly of the plants promised them by the farmer.

"Mr. Ames, you forgot to tell me what seeds to plant first?" Natalie reminded him, as he rolled up his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, preparatory to steering the plough.

"Well, that is a matter of chice. Some likes to seed their radishes fust, an' some get their lettuce in fust. Now I does it this way: lettuce grows so mighty fast that I figgers I lose time ef I put it down fust and let the other vegetables wait. So I drops in my beets, radishes, beans, peas, and sech like, an' last of all I gets in the lettuce seed. I gen'ally uses my early plants from the hot-bed fer the fust crop in my truck-garden. I got some little beet plants, and a handful of radish plants what was weeded out of the over-crowded beds, that you may as well use now, and seed down the others you want. My man is going over all the beds to-day, and I will hev him save what you kin use in your garden."

"Oh, how good you are! I never knew strangers in the country would act like your own family!" exclaimed Natalie. "In the city everyone thinks of getting the most out of you for what they have, that you might need."

Both the adults laughed at this precocious denunciation of city dealers.

Old Bob now began to plod along the edge of the garden-s.p.a.ce with his master behind guiding the plough. Natalie walked beside the farmer and watched eagerly as the soil curled over and over when the blade of the plough cut it through and pushed it upwards.

Farmer Ames was feeling quite at home, now that he was working the ground, and he began to converse freely with his young companion.

"Yeh know, don'cha, thet the man what lived here fer ten years, er more, was what we call a gentleman farmer. He went at things after the rules given in some books from the Agricultural Department from Washerton, D.

C. He even hed a feller come out from thar and make a test of the sile.

The upshot of it all was, he got a pile of stuff from Noo York-powders, fertilizers, and such, an' doctored the hull farm until we gaped at him.

"But, we all hed to confess that he raised the finest pertaters, and corn, and other truck of anyone fer many a mile around. I allus did say I'd foller his example, but somehow, thar's so much work waitin' to be done on a farm, that one never gits time to sit down to writin'. So I postponed it every year."

"Why, this is awfully interesting, Mr. Ames. I never knew who the tenant was, but he must have had a good sensible education on how to run a farm, or he wouldn't have known about these fertilizers."

"Yeh, we-all ust to grin at him for fuddling about on the sile before he'd seed anythin'-but golly! he got crops like-as-how we never saw raised before."

"I could try the same methods," said Natalie musingly.

"He worked over the sile every year, and never planted the same crops in the same places. He called it a sort of rotary process, and he tol' me my crops would double ef I did it."

"Did he mix in the doctorings every year, too?" asked Natalie.

"Sure! That's why he sent little boxes of dirt to Washerton-to find out just what to use in certain qualities of sile."

"Then I ought to do it, too, hadn't I?" asked she.

"Not this year, 'cause he said the last year he did it, that now he could skip a year or two. But you've gotta mix in good fertilizer before you plant. Then you'se kin laff at all us old fogy farmers what stick to old-fas.h.i.+oned ways."

Farmer Ames laughed heartily as if to encourage his young student, and to show how she might laugh after harvesting. Natalie gazed at him with a fascinated manner, for his lower lip had such a peculiar way of being sucked in under his upper teeth when he laughed. Not until Mrs. James explained this, by saying that Farmer Ames had no lower teeth, did she lose interest in this mannerism.

"I know all about the tools a farmer has to use in his work, Mr. Ames,"

bragged Natalie.

"Oh, do yeh? Wall then, you kin get the rake and hoe, and fix up the sile where the plough is done turned it up."

Natalie remembered the paragraph in "Scouting for Girls" and asked: "Shall I bring the spade, too?"

Just then, Mr. Ames stubbed his toe against a large stone that had been turned out of its bed. He grumbled forth: "Better git a pickaxe and crowbar."

"My book didn't mention crowbars and pickaxes, Mr. Ames, so I don't know what they are," ventured Natalie modestly.

"Every farmer has to have a pick and crow on hand in case he wants to dig fence-post holes, er move a rock-like the one I just hit."

"Oh! But our fences are all made."

"So are the rocks! But they ain't moved. Better go over the ploughed dirt and find 'em, then git them outen the garden."

Natalie began to hunt for stones, and as she found any, to carry them over to the fence where she threw them over in the adjoining field. This was not very exciting pastime, and her back began to ache horribly.

Mrs. James, who had lingered behind, now joined Natalie and exclaimed in surprise, "Why, I thought you said the old tenant was so particular with his garden? He should have removed all these stones, then."

"This section was used fer pertaters an' corn every other year, an' some stones is good to drain the sile fer them sort of greens. But fer small truck like you'se plan to plant here, the stones has to get out."

Mrs. James a.s.sisted Natalie in throwing out stones which turned up under the plough-blade, and when that section of the garden was finished, Mr.

Ames mopped his warm brow and looked back over his work with satisfaction.

"Ef you'se want to plant corn over in that unused spot alongside the field, it will be a fine place to use. It is not been used fer years fer truck."

"It looks awfully weedy. Maybe things won't grow there," ventured Natalie.