GARDENS AND GOPHERS
"Have you got any more corn or potatoes to drop, or onion sets to cover,
or radishes and beans and turnips to plant, or wheat or barley to
scatter, or--or anything else to do?" Peace panted breathlessly one warm
Saturday afternoon late in May.
"No," smiled Gail, looking tenderly down into the flushed, perspiring
face. "You girls have worked faithfully all day, and now you can rest
awhile. Mike is coming next week to finish the planting."
"Can--may we fix our own gardens, then? Mr. Kennedy gave me a whole lot
of seed the gove'nment sent him to plant, but he can't, 'cause he's
going to Alaska."
"Government seed! What kinds?"
"Cucumbers and beets, and parsley and carrots and--"
"But, child, we have all of those in our big garden now. I thought you
wanted your little plot of ground for flowers?"
"I do. One of these packages is sweet peas."
"Oh, dearie, I guess you have made a mistake. Mr. Kennedy wouldn't have
any use for sweet pea seed."
"Hope said that was the name on the package."
"Well, then I suppose they are, though I never heard tell of the
Kennedys raising flowers before. Sweet peas ought to be planted along a
fence. We will have Mike dig a little trench just inside the front yard
fence, and plant the peas there."
Peace's face fell, but she offered no objections to the plan, and Gail
straightway forgot all about it. Not so with the enthusiastic, youthful
planter, however; and, while the older sister was bustling about the hot
kitchen, the curly, brown head was bobbing energetically back and forth
in the front yard, where she and Cherry were digging a trench as fast as
they could turn the sod with an old broken spade and a discarded
fire-shovel; while Allee followed in their wake, dropping the seed into
the freshly-turned earth and carefully covering them again.
"Mercy, but this yard is big!" sighed weary Peace, as she began digging
along the third and last side. "Have you got enough left to stick in
here, Allee?"
"This is all," answered the blue-eyed toiler, displaying a handful of
flat, black seed in her apron.
"Those don't look like peas," cried Cherry, pausing to examine the
queer-looking things. "All I ever saw were round."
"Garden peas _are_ round," answered Peace, with a knowing air, "but
these are sweet peas, and they are flat."
"Did you ever see any before?" demanded Cherry suspiciously, nettled by
her sister's manner.
"No--o, but doesn't the sack they were in say 'sweet peas?'"
It certainly did, there was no disputing that fact, so Cherry discreetly
remained silent, and began her vigorous shoveling once more.
When the supper hour was announced the shallow, uneven trench was
completed, the seeds all covered, and three dirty gardeners perched in a
row on the fence, planning out the list of customers who would buy the
sweet blossoms when the vines had matured.
"There's the horn for supper," said Cherry.
"And I know Mrs. Lacy will be glad to get them sometimes, 'cause she
hasn't any flowers at all," continued Peace, ignoring the interruption.
"That makes ten people."
"Well, hurry up! I am hungry, and we'll have to wash before Gail will
give us anything to eat," cried the tallest girl impatiently. "I'll race
you to the pump."
"You are late," Hope greeted them, when, after a noisy splashing and
hasty wiping of faces, they entered the room. "Doesn't Allee's face look
funny with that black streak around it where she didn't hit the dirt?
What have you been doing to get so warm?"
"Planting sweet peas," answered Allee.
"Oh, Peace! After I said we would have Mike dig a trench by the fence!"
"You didn't say we _couldn't_ plant them, Gail. We dug it so's to save
Mike the trouble. Anyway, the seeds ought to be in the ground by this
time if they are ever going to blossom this year, and Mike is so slow.
We thought it was best not to wait. When do you s'pose they will come
up?"
"Oh, in about two or three weeks, maybe," Gail answered. "You better rub
your arms well with liniment before you go to bed tonight, or you will
be so lame tomorrow you can't move."
The incident was closed, and the sweet peas forgotten until one day
about three weeks later Hope called excitedly from the front yard,
"Gail, Gail, come here! What ever are these plants coming up all along
the fence? They are not sweet peas."
Gail came, examined the fat sprouts and looked at Hope in comical
dismay. "They are pumpkins or cucumbers or melons, and the whole front
fence is lined with them!"
"Poor Peace!" said Hope, when their laugh had ended. "She will be
heartbroken. She made her fortune a dozen times over on the blossoms
those vines are to bear."
"Yes," sighed Gail. "She has the happy faculty of trying to do one thing
and getting some unexpected, unheard-of result. Poor little blunderbus!
But what shall we do with these plants? There are enough to stock a
ranch. We can't leave them here, and I don't think they will bear
transplanting."
"And so they ain't sweet peas at all!" exclaimed a disappointed voice
behind them, and there stood Peace herself, contemplating her treasures
with solemn eyes.
"No, dear, they are pumpkins, I guess. What kind of seed did you plant?"
"I planted sweet pea seed," came the mournful reply. "Leastways the sack
said so. Hope read it herself."
"Yes, the sack was labelled plainly, but I never thought to examine the
seed. What did they look like?"
"They were black and flat."
"Melons," said Gail. "Well, I would rather have melons than pumpkins,
for we already have planted a lot of them. Still, it will spoil these to
transplant them, so they might just as well have been pumpkins. It is a
shame to have to throw them all away, though."
Peace said nothing, but in bitterness of heart helped pull up all the
green sprouts and throw them over the fence. Then she sat down beside
the heap to mourn over her fallen aircastles.
"Seems 's if I can't do anything like other folks," she sighed dismally.
"I plant sweet peas and get melons. I wonder if melons wouldn't sell
better than peas. Gail says these won't grow, but I am going to try them
anyway."
She filled her apron with the hapless plants and carried them away to
her small garden plot behind the shed, where she patiently set out every
one, regardless of the flower seeds already hid beneath the soil. And,
strange to say, they grew,--at least many of them did, choking out the
poppies and marigolds and balsams which finally climbed through the
three inches of ground the zealous gardener had hid them under, and
formed a thick tangle of promising vines.
Then the gophers began their destructive work, tunnelling the little
farm into a perfect labyrinth of underground passages, much to the
dismay of the little household, so dependent upon the success of their
crops. Traps were set, the holes were flooded, cats by the score were
let loose in the fields, but still the little pests continued to dig, as
if laughing at the futile attempts made to get rid of them. At length
Gail sighed, "I am afraid we will have to resort to poisoned grain. I
hate to, because I am so afraid the children will get into it, or
something dreadful happen on account of it."
"I don't see how either the youngsters or even the hens could get at it
if it was put down the holes," said Faith. "Say nothing about it but fix
up a mess and Hope and I will drop it some day when the children are
away and the hens in their yard."
So Gail mixed up a huge bucket full of poisoned grain, and while the
younger trio were gathering flowers in the woods one afternoon, the
other sisters sallied forth with their deadly bait, bent on
exterminating their small foes.
All might have gone well had not the smaller girls suddenly decided to
play hare and hound, and it fell to Peace's lot to be the hare. With an
apron full of gay dandelion blossoms for the trail, the active little
body set out on a wide detour of the woods, across the bridge, up
through the Hartman pasture land, reaching the barbed wire fence on
their own little farm just in time to see Hope dropping a last handful
of grain into a gopher hole before returning to the house with her empty
pail.
"Now what has she been doing?" thought Peace, peering out from a thicket
of hazel bushes. "Oh, I know! I bet she is trying to poison the gophers,
like Mr. Hartman did. I wonder if they will come up after the corn right
away. I am going to watch. I'd like to see how it kills them."
She carefully wriggled her way under the lower wire, and sat down in
front of the nearest gopher mound, forgetting all about her dandelions,
sisters, and play, in the prospect of witnessing the death of one of the
enemy. But either Mr. Gopher was not at home, or else he suspected the
presence of an unwelcome caller, for he did not come up in sight for
even a nibble of the tempting corn; and at last, weary of her fruitless
vigil, Peace cried aloud, "He prob'ly can get all he wants without
letting me see him. I'm going to dig it all out on top, so he will
_have_ to come out in sight."
She quickly scratched the poisoned bait out of the runway, scattered it
liberally about, and settled back in her former position, with her eyes
glued on the mouth of the tunnel; but still Mr. Gopher did not come.
"You tiresome old thing!" she exclaimed impatiently, after what seemed
hours of waiting. "I shan't watch for you another minute. I'll find
another hole and see if they will do any better there." So from mound to
mound she scurried, digging the grain up into view, and then watching
for the appearance of the tenant--with no result.
"Well, of all provoking people!" cried an indignant voice behind her,
and there were Cherry and Allee crawling under the fence. "How long have
you been sitting there like a bump on a log? You didn't drop enough
dandelions, and we had an awful time following you. What on earth are
you doing here? Let's go up to the pump for a drink. I am nearly burned
up." Without giving the weary Peace a chance to answer her questions,
she raced away through the pasture toward the house, dragging Allee with
her; and the third girl, after one last, hopeless glance at the gopher
hole, followed more slowly.
Some time later Hope came tearing across the field, with hair flying,
and her eyes filled with alarm, calling shrilly, "Gail, Faith, the hens
have broken out of the yard and are eating the poisoned grain! There are
more than a dozen down there now!"
"Oh, dear," cried Peace, with guilty conscience, "I scratched the corn
out of the holes so's I could watch the gophers die. And I let the hens
out, too, 'cause they looked so hot shut up in that mite of a yard after
they have been running loose for so long."
With despairing eyes, Gail looked down at the dying fowls, and not
daring to trust herself to speak, she hurried away to the house to sob
out her grief alone.
Faith paused long enough to count the hapless hens, clutched the
wretched culprit and shook her vigorously, then silently followed her
older sister, leaving the heartbroken child alone with the victims of
her curiosity.
"Did you ever see my equal?" she said aloud, addressing herself. "You
are the worst child that ever lived! You wash the labels off the spice
boxes so Faith gets ginger instead of mustard in her salad dressing; you
try to milk cows and break their legs instead; you spoil cakes and steal
eggs and bother Gail and Faith till they are nearly crazy; and now
you've taken to killing hens just to see how gophers die. Peace
Greenfield, aren't you ashamed of yourself? Yes, I am, but there's no
use in wasting those perfectly good hens--twenty of them--we had only
forty in all. It's a wonder the rest of them didn't get a dose, too.
Hope has got them locked up at last. There comes Cherry; I'll make her
help. Oh, Cherry, here's a job for you!"
"What is it? And why are the girls crying? They wouldn't tell me."
"I've killed a lot of hens for them, playing hare and hound. That's the
very last time I will ever be hare, Charity Greenfield! Help me undress
these chickens. We'll have some for supper, and the rest we'll peddle to
the town folks."
"Oh, Peace, I can't pull feathers! It makes me shiver every time a bunch
comes out in my hands."
"You will have to. You don't expect me to pick them all, do you? I guess
the girls never thought of selling the hens, and I can't ask them to
help now. We will get the ax and chop off their heads and then hang them
in the crab-apple tree while we strip them. You really must help,
Cherry. Gail says they pick better while they are warm."
She hunted up the ax, and one by one hacked off poor biddies' heads; but
when it came to the picking process, they found it was slow work for
small, inexperienced fingers, and gave up in despair when the third nude
body lay in the grass at their feet.
"It is almost night, Peace, and we've picked three. What shall we do?
'Twill take us hours to finish that whole bunch."
"We'll sell them for as much as we can get, and see if the butcher won't
take the rest with the feathers on. We can keep two or three for
ourselves. Where is Allee's cart?"
All that remained of the poison victims were loaded into the small
wagon, and their strange pilgrimage through the village streets began.
The picked fowls were readily disposed of, and one neighbor bought the
largest of the feathered birds, but no one else wanted to bother with
them, and it was only after much persuasion that the butcher consented
to take six, at the fancy price of twenty-five cents each.
"Well, that is better than nothing, though he wouldn't sell me one for
that little last Christmas," sighed Peace, much disappointed at the
result of their peddling. "Three dollars and fifty cents will buy quite
a few chickens, and chickens make hens if you give them time. What do
you s'pose Gail will say when we give her the money?"
They were not long in finding out. The two red-eyed girls were busy in
the kitchen when the children returned with the unsold hens in the
wagon; and with fear and trembling, Peace laid the coins on the table,
saying humbly, "Mrs. Munson took one, and Mrs. Bainbridge, and Mrs.
Edwards and Mrs. Lacy, and the butcher bought six. That's all the hens
we could sell. We left three here for supper and--"
"Peace Greenfield!" shrieked the horrified sisters in unison. "Did you
sell those poisoned hens? You march straight upstairs to bed--and
Cherry, too!" Then Gail flew one way and Faith the other, to collect the
birds before the buyers had a chance to dish up the delicacy to adored
families.
When they had seen the last fowl safely disposed of, and were home once
more, Gail said despairingly, "I don't know what in the world to do with
that child!"
"She needs a good, sound thrashing," answered Faith sharply. "She gets
into more mischief in a day than a monkey would in a month."
"She doesn't mean to," pleaded Gail. "Mother never believed in whipping.
If it were mischief for mischief's sake, I could punish her, but her
intentions are good--"
"Good intentions don't amount to much in her case. A good trouncing
might make her think a little more."
"I _can't_ whip her, Faith, but I'll go up and lecture her good. I
believe that will be more effective than harshness."
So the perplexed mother-sister mounted the stairs to the chamber above,
from which sounded a low murmur of voices, and she paused in the hallway
to assemble her thoughts, when Peace's words, evidently in supplication,
floated out through the open door: "And, O Lord, don't blame Gail for
getting mad. It's the first time I can remember. She is usu'ly very
good. S'posing she was a stepmother, like lame Jennie Munn's, wouldn't
we have a time living with her, though? And I am truly sorry about the
hens. Hope says we can't get many eggs now, 'cause half of the flock is
gone, and if we keep all our customers we will have to do without eggs
here at home. I don't mind that at all myself, 'cause I've eaten eggs
and eggs till it makes me sick to hunt them now; but what will Faith do
for her cakes? That's what is worrying me. It was so we could buy more
live hens that Cherry and me sold the dead ones. We didn't know they
would make people sick, and p'r'aps kill them, too. I am sorry the money
had to go back and that the hens are just wasted now, but I 'xpect
they'll make an elegant funeral tomorrow. So forgive Gail and keep her
from getting mad any more, and forgive me and keep me from being bad any
more, and make us 'happy children in a happy home.' Amen."
Softly, silently, Gail stole down the stairs again, with her lecture
unsaid.