ng with
a plow and bury our past like that--cover everything mean and nasty
up, and forget it! That institution they put me in--and the old woman
I lived with before that, who drank so much gin and beat me--and the
boarders--and that boy who used to pull my braids whenever he met me--My
that would be fine!"

"I reckon that is what Life does do for us," returned Hiram,
thoughtfully, stopping at the end of the furrow to mop his brow and let
the old horse breathe. "Yes, sir! Life plows all the experience under,
and it ought to enrich our future existence, just as this stuff I'm
plowing under here will decay and enrich the soil."

"But the plow don't turn it quite under in spots," said Sister, with
a sigh. "Leastways, I can't help remembering the bad things once in a
while."

There were certain other individuals who found out very soon that Hiram
was plowing, too. Those were the hens. There were not more than fifteen
or twenty of the scrubby creatures, and they began to follow the plow
and pick up grubs and worms.

"I tell you one thing that I've got to do before we put in much," Hiram
told the ex-boarding house mistress at noon.

"What's that, Hi? Don't go very deep down into my pocket, for it won't
stand it. After paying my bills, and paying for moving out here, I ain't
got much money left--and that's a fact!"

"It won't cost much, but we've got to have a yard for the hens. Hens and
a garden will never mix successfully. Unless you enclose them you might
as well have no garden in that spot where I'm plowing."

"There warn't but five eggs to-day," said Mrs. Atterson. "Mebbe we'd
better chop the heads off 'em, one after the other, and eat 'em."

"They'll lay better as it grows warmer. That henhouse must be fixed
before next winter. It's too draughty," said Hi. "And then, hens can't
lay well--especially through the winter--if they haven't the proper kind
of food."

"But three or four of the dratted things want to stay on the nest all
the time," complained the old lady.

"If I was you, Mrs. Atterson," Hiram said, soberly, "I'd spend five
dollars for a hundred eggs of well-bred stock.

"I'd set these hens as fast as they get broody, and raise a decent flock
of biddies for next year. Scrub hens are just as bad as scrub cows. The
scrubs will eat quite as much as full-bloods, yet the returns from the
scrubs are much less."

"I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Atterson, "a hen's always been just a hen
to me--one's the same