“Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?”
“No,” I said; “this is my first attempt.”
“Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture, practically?”
“No; I believe I have not.”
“Some instinct told me,” said the old gentleman, putting on his
spectacles and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded
his paper into a convenient shape. “I wish to read you what must have
made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it
was you that wrote it:
“Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to
send a boy up and let him shake the tree.”
“Now, what do you think of that?—for I really suppose you wrote it?”
“Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no
doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are
spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition,
when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree——”
“Shake your grandmother! Turnips don’t grow on trees!”
“Oh, they don’t don’t they? Well, who said they did? The language was
intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows
anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine.”
Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds,
and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I
did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door
after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was
displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I
could not be any help to him.
_FROM_ “THE INNOCENTS ABROAD” (1867–68)