removing the tops.

"But how is it, Mr. Logan," I inquired, "that the weeds are everywhere
more numerous than the flowers?"

"Ah, Miss," he replied, resting the hoe upon his shoulder, taking off
his hat, and wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "I sometimes
think the weeds are immortal, but that the flowers are not. Some one has
said that the earth is mother of the weeds, but only step-mother to the
flowers. I think it is really so. We who cultivate the soil must
maintain against them, as against sin, a perpetual warfare."

"This is hoeing made easy," said my sister, as Mr. Logan walked away
toward the house for a glass of water. "A nice journeyman, Lizzie, eh?
Don't seem as if he could ever be tired! Will you ask him to come
again?"

"Why, Jane, you are foolish!" I replied.

But there was an arch smirk on her countenance, and she continued
looking at me with so much latent meaning in the expression of her eye,
that I was fairly compelled to turn away.

Noon came, that witching time with all who labor in the fields or woods,
and not until then did Mr. Logan lay down his clumsy hoe. I half pitied
his condition as we came out of the hot sun into the shelter of a
trellis which ran along the side of the house, over which a dozen
grape-vines were hanging so thickly as to exclude even the noonday
glare. It was a sweltering day for a gentleman to work among the weeds
in a strawberry-field, in coat and cravat. But he made very light of it,
and declared that he would come the next morning and see us through the
job, and even another, if we thought there would be room for him. After
he had gone, Jane reminded me of these offers; adding,--

"I felt quite sure he would be down again, even without your inviting
him. He seems to admire something else here besides strawberries. What
do you think it can be?"

But I considered her inquiries too ridiculous to be worth replying to.

After dinner we gave up hoeing for the day, and went to our usual
afternoon occupation of picking the next morning's supply for the widow.
She not only sold readily all we could gather, and at excellent prices,
but even called for more. It seemed that her customers were also
increasing, as well as those of our neighbors. Indeed, her urgency for
more fruit was such, during the entire season, that the question
repeatedly crossed my mind, whether we could not appropriate more ground
to strawberries by getting rid of some of the flowers. They were