"Well," he said, "ain't you going to ask why I did that?"
"I know, sir," I said. "To make it neat."
"Only partly right, Grant. I've cut that off smoothly so that no rain
may lodge and rot the place before the wound has had time to heal."
"And will it heal, sir?"
"Yes, Grant. In time Nature will spread a ring of bark round that,
which will thicken and close in till the place is healed completely
over."
Then he busily showed me the use of the saw and knife among the big
standard trees, using them liberally to get rid of all the scrubby,
crowded, useless branches that lived upon the strength of the tree and
did no work, only kept out the light, air, and sunshine from those that
did work and bear fruit.
"Why it almost seems, sir," I said one day, "as if Nature had made the
trees so badly that man was obliged to improve them."
"Ah, I'm glad to hear you say that, my lad," he said; "but you are not
right. I'm only a gardener, but I've noticed these things a great deal.
Nature is not a bungler. She gives us apple and plum trees, and they
grow and bear fruit in a natural and sufficient way. It is because man
wants them to bear more and bigger fruit, and for more to grow on a
small piece of ground than Nature would plant, that man has to cut and
prune."
"But suppose Nature planted a lot of trees on a small piece of ground,"
I said, "what then?"
"What then, Grant? Why, for a time they'd grow up thin and poor and
spindly, till one of them made a start and overtopped the others. Then
it would go on growing, and the others would dwindle and die away."
The time glided on, and I kept learning the many little things about the
place pretty fast. As the months went on I became of some use to my
employer over his accounts, and by degrees pretty well knew his
position.
It seemed that he had been a widower for many years, and Mrs Dodley,
the housekeeper and general servant all in one, confided to me one day
that "Missus's" bonnets and shawls and gowns were all hanging up in
their places just as they had been left by Mrs Brownsmith.
"Which it's a dead waste, Master Grant," she used to finish by saying,
"as there's several as I know would be glad to have 'em; but as to
that--Lor' bless yer!"
It was not often that Mrs Dodley spoke, but when she did it was to
inveigh against some oppression or trouble.
Candles were a great burden to the scrupulously clean woman.
"Tens I says," she confided to me one day, "but he will have eights, and
what's the consequence? If I want to do a bit of extry needle-work I
might light up two tens, but I should never have the heart to burn two
eights at once, for extravagance I can't abear. Ah! he's a hard master,
and I'm sorry for you, my dear."
"Why?" I said.
"Ah! you'll find out some day," she said, shaking her head and then
bustling off to her work.
I had not much companionship, for Ike was generally too busy to say a
word, and though after the pear adventure Shock did nothing more
annoying to me than to stand now and then upon his head, look at me
upside down, and point and spar at me with his toes, we seemed to get to
be no better friends.
He took to that trick all at once one day in a soft bit of newly dug
earth. He was picking up stones, and I was sticking fresh labels at the
ends of some rows of plants, when all at once he uttered a peculiar
monkey-like noise, down went his head, up went his heels, and I stared
in astonishment at first and then turned my back.
This always annoyed Shock; but one day when he stood up after his quaint
fashion I was out of temper and had a bad headache, so I ran to him, and
he struck at me with his feet, just as if they had been hands, only he
could not have doubled them up. I was too quick for him though, and
with a push drove him down.
He jumped up again directly and repeated the performance.