t
thrive unless the weather is really warm, while a light frost lays them
low. More than once I have tried very early corn-planting, but never
with much result. Once I had quite a patch of it up about three inches
high when the wind suddenly went to the north and it was certain that
the night would bring frost. I gathered up all the old cans and boxes
and hats on the premises and covered every hill of it. That was a good
scheme, and most of my corn survived, but six weeks later, when it was
green and waving, a neighbor's cow got in and ate it to the last piece.
No, fate is against early corn-planting.

We had seed enough for all we wanted to plant that first day, and a good
deal more than enough of some things. It's remarkable how many lettuce
seeds there are in a buff packet. I sowed and sowed without being able
to use up two packets. I don't see how they can raise and gather so many
for five cents. It was the same with most of the other things. I did not
need to reorder, and by night I did not particularly want to. It had
been a pretty long day of raking and digging and patting down, and I had
got over some of the intoxication of the earth smell. Also, I was lame.
I could see that tending a garden of the size we had planned--along,
say, in July--was going to be a chore. No one as yet had come to replace
our ex-domestic staff: if no one came that chore would fall to me. In
the gray of the evening my enthusiasm was at rather low ebb. It was all
I could do to make out an order for asparagus and sweet-potato plants.
A cool, quiet bed, in a spring land where frogs are peeping in the moist
places, is sweet after such a day.

II

_Out of the blue_

We were not permanently abandoned, however. Bella and Gibbs, our
literary forces, were presently replaced by Lena and William. Lena and
William were not literary. William was just plain Tipperary, and Lena
was a Finn. I extracted Lena one day from a "Norsk Employment Agency,"
selecting her chiefly for her full-moon smile and her inability to speak
any English word. The smile had a permanent look, and I reasoned that an
inability to speak English would be a bar to her getting away. We should
not mind it much ourselves. Having had everything from a Pole to a
Patagonian, we were experts on sign language, and rather favored it
after the flow of English we had just survived. I personally conducted
Lena to the train and landed her safely at Brook Ridge.

William came to us out o