knock yer down with the kitchen poker and then kick you
out. You've got to risk it."

I did tell Old Brownsmith all my trouble when we reached home, and he
listened attentively and nodding his head sometimes. Then he said
softly, "Ah!" and that was all.

But I heard him scold Master Shock tremendously for going off from his
work without leave.

Shock had been looking on from a distance while I was telling Old
Brownsmith, and this put it into his head, I suppose, that I had been
speaking against him, for during the next month he turned his back
whenever he met me, and every now and then, if I looked up suddenly, it
was to see him shaking his fist at me, while his hair seemed to stand up
more fiercely than ever out of his crownless straw hat like young
rhubarb thrusting up the lid from the forcing-pot put on to draw the
stalks.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

THE GARDENER SURGEON.

"People sneer at gardening and gardeners, Grant," said the old gentleman
to me one day. "Perhaps you may take to some other occupation when you
grow older; but don't you never be ashamed of having learned to be a
gardener."

"I'm sure I never shall," I said.

"I hope you will not, my boy, for there's something in gardening and
watching the growth of trees and plants that's good for a lad's nature;
and if I was a schoolmaster I'd let every boy have a garden, and make
him keep it neat. It would be as good a lesson as any he could teach."

"I like gardening more and more, sir," I said.

"That's right, my boy. I hope you do, but you've a deal to learn yet.
Gardening's like learning to play the fiddle; there's always something
more to get hold of than you know. I wish I had some more glass."

"I wish you had, sir," I said.

"Why, boy?--why?" he cried sharply.

"Because you seem as if you'd like it, sir," I said, feeling rather
abashed by his sharp manner.

"Yes, but it was so that I should be able to teach you, sir. But wait a
bit, I'll talk to my brother one of these days."

Time glided on, and as I grew bigger and stronger I used now and then to
go up with Ike to the market. He would have liked me to go every time,
but Mr Brownsmith shook his head, and would only hear of it in times of
emergency.

"Not a good task for you, Grant," he used to say. "I want you at home."

We were down the garden one morning after a very stormy night, when the
wind had been so high that a great many of the fruit-trees had had their
branches bro