another man, Dryden by name, was engaged to assist old man
Spafford and take care of Sancho, and a boy, called Solomon, to wait
upon Dryden and do chores. A few day-laborers were also temporarily
hired, the season being so far advanced and work pressing. The
carpenters were recalled, for there was a barn to build, and hen-coops
and a pig-sty, not to speak of a fence. Hope and Merry flitted hither
and thither armed with all sorts of impossible implements, which some
one was sure to want by the time they had worked five minutes with them.
As for the Pessimist, he confined himself to setting out orange trees,
the only legitimate business, he contended, on the place. This work,
however, he performed vicariously, standing by and smoking while a negro
set out the trees.

"My duties appear to be limited to paying the bills," remarked the
Invalid, "and I seem to be the only member of the family who cannot let
out the job."

"I thought the farm was to be self-supporting?" said the Pessimist.

"Well, so it is: wait till the crops are raised," retorted Merry.

"Henderson says," observed Hope, meditatively, "that there are six
hundred dollars net profits to be obtained from one acre of cabbages."

"Why don't you plant cabbages, then? In this seven-acre lot, for
instance?"

"Oh, that would be too many. Besides, I have planted all I could get. It
is too late to sow the seed, but old man Spafford had some beautiful
plants he let me have. He charged an extra price because they were so
choice, but I was glad to get the best: it is cheapest in the end. I got
five thousand of them."

"What sort are they?" asked the Invalid.

"I don't know precisely. Spafford says he done lost the paper, and he
didn't rightly understand the name nohow, 'long o' not being able to
read; but they were a drefful choice kind."

"Oh, bother the name!" said the Pessimist: "who cares what it is? A
cabbage is a cabbage, I presume. But what have you in this seven-acre
lot?"

"Those are peas. Dryden says that in North Carolina they realize four
hundred dollars an acre from them--when they don't freeze."

The planting being now fairly over, we began to look about us for other
amusement.

"Better not ride old Sancho," remarked old man Spafford one day as he
observed the Pessimist putting a saddle on the ancient quadruped.

"Why not, uncle? You ride him yourself, and you said he was a very fine
saddle-horse."

"I rides he bareback. Good hoss for lady: