The singing of the birds, nested in the old red maple tree that
overshadowed the house on the side where Natalie's room was, roused her
from the most restful sleep she had had in months. No vibration of
electricity such as one constantly hears and feels in the city, no
shouting of folks in the streets, no milkman with his reckless banging
of cans, no steamboat's shrieks and wails such as one hears when living
on the Drive, disturbed the peace and quietude of the night in the
country.
"Oh my! I hope I haven't overslept," thought Natalie, as she sat up,
wide awake. She looked at the clock on the table and could scarcely
believe it was but five minutes of five.
"Why, it feels like eight to me!" she said to herself, as she sprang
from bed and ran to sniff the delightful fresh air that gently waved the
curtains in and out of the opened windows.
"I'm going to surprise Jimmy! I'll be dressed and out in the garden
before she wakes up," giggled the girl, hastily catching up her
bath-towel and soap, and running stealthily along the hall to the
bathroom.
But her plans were not realized, because Mrs. James was up and
down-stairs before Natalie ever heard the birds sing. She sat on the
piazza sorting some bulbs and roots she had brought from the city in her
trunk.
After Natalie was dressed, she tiptoed to Mrs. James' door and turned
the knob very quietly so the sleeper should not awake. But she found the
bed empty and the room vacated.
Down-stairs she flew, and saw the side door open. She also got a whiff
of muffins, and knew Rachel was up and preparing an early breakfast. Out
of the door she went, and stood still when she found Mrs. James working
on queer-looking roots.
"When did you get up?" asked she, taken aback.
"Oh, about quarter to five. When did you?" laughed Mrs. James.
"I woke ten minutes later, but I wanted to s'prise you in bed. I went in
and found the room empty," explained Natalie. "What sort of vegetables
are those roots?"
"These are dahlia roots, and they will look fine at the fence-line, over
there, that divides the field from our driveway. Do you see these dried
sticks that come from each root? Those are last year's plant-stalks. We
leave them on during the winter months, so the roots won't sprout until
you plant them. Now I will cut them down quite close to the root before
I put them in the ground."
As she spoke, Mrs. James trimmed down the old stalks to within an inch
of the root, then gathered up her apronful of bulbs and roots and stood
ready to go down the steps.
"Do you wish to help, Natty? You can bring the spade and digging fork
that Rachel placed outside the cellar door for me."
Natalie ran for the tools and hurried after Mrs. James to the narrow
flower bed that ran alongside the picket fence. A ten-inch grass-border
separated this flower bed from the side door driveway, making the place
for flowers quite secure from wheeltracks or unwary horses' hoofs.
The dahlia roots were planted so that the tip edge of the old stalks
barely showed above the soil. Then the bulbs were planted: lily bulbs,
Egyptian iris, Nile Grass, and other plants which will come up every
year after once being planted.
"There now! That is done and they are on the road to beautifying our
grounds," sighed Mrs. James, standing up and stretching her arm muscles.
"After all I've said, you were the first one to plant, anyway,"
complained Natalie.
"Not in the vegetable garden! And flowers are not much account when one
has to eat and live," laughed Mrs. James.
A voice calling from the kitchen door, now diverted attention from the
roots and bulbs. "I got dem muffins on de table an' nice cereal ready to
dish up," announced Rachel.
"And we're ready for it, too!" declared Natalie.
During the morning meal, Mrs. James and her protégée talked of nothing
but gardening, and the prospects of an early crop. To anyone experienced
in farming, their confidence in harvesting vegetables within a fortnight
would have been highly amusing. But no one was present to reflect as
much as a smile on their ardor, so the planning went on.
It was not quite seven when Farmer Ames drove in at the side gate and
passed the house. Natalie ran out to greet him and to make sure he had
brought the plough in the farm wagon.
"Good-morning, Mr. Ames. How long will it be before you start the
ploughing?" called Natalie, as the horse was stopped opposite the side
door.
"Good-mornin', miss. Is Mis' James to home this mornin'?" asked the
be-whiskered farmer, nodding an acknowledgment of Natalie's greeting.
"Here I am, Mr. Ames. Both of us are ready to help in the gardening in
whatever way you suggest," said Mrs. James, appearing on the porch.
"Thar ain't much to be helped, yit, but soon's I git Bob ploughin',
you'se kin go over the sile and pick out any big stones that might turn
up. Ef they ain't taken out they will spile the growin' of the plants by
keepin' out light and heat."
Natalie exchanged looks with her companion. Neither one had ever thought
of such a possibility.
"What shall I use for them--a rake?" asked Natalie.
"Rake--Nuthin'! all its teeth would crack off ef you tried to drag a big
rock with it. Nop--one has to use plain old hands to pick up rocks and
carry them to the side of the field."
"Maybe we'd better wear gloves, Jimmy," suggested Natalie in a whisper.
"Yes, indeed! I'm glad we brought some rubber gloves with us in case of
need in the house. I never dreamed of using them for this," returned
Mrs. James.
She turned and went indoors for the gloves while Farmer Ames drove on to
the barns. Natalie followed the wagon, because she felt she could not
afford to lose a moment away from this valuable ally in the new plan of
work.
"Mr. Ames, as soon as our garden is ploughed, can it be seeded?" asked
she, when the farmer began to unhitch the horse.
"That depends. Ef your sile is rich and fertile, then you'se kin plant
as soon as it is smoothed out. First the rocks must come out, then the
ground is broken up fine, and last you must rake, over and over, until
the earth is smooth as a table."
"What plants ought I to choose first? You see it is so late in the
season, I fear my garden will be backward," said Natalie.
"Nah--don't worry 'bout that, sis," remarked the farmer. "Becus we had a
cold wet spring and the ground never got warm enough fer seeds until ten
days ago. Why, I diden even waste my time and money tryin' out any seeds
till last week. I will gain more in the end because the sun-rays are
warm enough this month to show results in my planting. Ef I hed seeded
all my vegetables in that cold spell in May they would hev laid dormant
and, mebbe, rotted. So you don't need to worry about its bein' late this
year. Some years that is true--we kin seed in early May, but not this
time."
"I'm so glad for that! Now I can race with other farmers around here and
see who gets the best crops," laughed Natalie.
"What'cha goin' to plant down?" asked Mr. Ames, curious to hear how this
city girl would begin.
"Oh, I was going to leave that to your judgment," returned she naïvely.
"Ha, ha, ha!" was the farmer's return to this answer. Then he added:
"Wall now, I kin give you some young tomater plants and cabbiges an'
cauliflower slips. Them is allus hard to seed so I plants mine in a
hot-bed in winter and raises enough to sell to the countryside fer
plantin' in the spring. I got some few dozen left what you are welcome
to, ef you want 'em."
"Oh, fine! I certainly do want them," exclaimed Natalie. "Can I go to
your house, now, and get them?"
"Better leave 'em planted 'til you wants to put 'em in your garden. They
will wilt away ef you leave 'em out of sile fer a day er night. Besides,
this stonin' work will keep you busy to-day."
Mrs. James now joined them, and handed Natalie a pair of rubber gloves.
Farmer Ames stared at them in surprise for he had never seen anyone wear
gloves while gardening--at least, not in Greenville.
As he drove Bob and the plough to the garden-space, Natalie and Mrs.
James followed, talking eagerly of the plants promised them by the
farmer.
"Mr. Ames, you forgot to tell me what seeds to plant first?" Natalie
reminded him, as he rolled up his shirt sleeves, preparatory to steering
the plough.
"Well, that is a matter of chice. Some likes to seed their radishes
fust, an' some get their lettuce in fust. Now I does it this way:
lettuce grows so mighty fast that I figgers I lose time ef I put it down
fust and let the other vegetables wait. So I drops in my beets,
radishes, beans, peas, and sech like, an' last of all I gets in the
lettuce seed. I gen'ally uses my early plants from the hot-bed fer the
fust crop in my truck-garden. I got some little beet plants, and a
handful of radish plants what was weeded out of the over-crowded beds,
that you may as well use now, and seed down the others you want. My man
is going over all the beds to-day, and I will hev him save what you kin
use in your garden."
"Oh, how good you are! I never knew strangers in the country would act
like your own family!" exclaimed Natalie. "In the city everyone thinks
of getting the most out of you for what they have, that you might need."
Both the adults laughed at this precocious denunciation of city dealers.
Old Bob now began to plod along the edge of the garden-space with his
master behind guiding the plough. Natalie walked beside the farmer and
watched eagerly as the soil curled over and over when the blade of the
plough cut it through and pushed it upwards.
Farmer Ames was feeling quite at home, now that he was working the
ground, and he began to converse freely with his young companion.
"Yeh know, don'cha, thet the man what lived here fer ten years, er more,
was what we call a gentleman farmer. He went at things after the rules
given in some books from the Agricultural Department from Washerton, D.
C. He even hed a feller come out from thar and make a test of the sile.
The upshot of it all was, he got a pile of stuff from Noo York--powders,
fertilizers, and such, an' doctored the hull farm until we gaped at him.
"But, we all hed to confess that he raised the finest pertaters, and
corn, and other truck of anyone fer many a mile around. I allus did say
I'd foller his example, but somehow, thar's so much work waitin' to be
done on a farm, that one never gits time to sit down to writin'. So I
postponed it every year."
"Why, this is awfully interesting, Mr. Ames. I never knew who the tenant
was, but he must have had a good sensible education on how to run a
farm, or he wouldn't have known about these fertilizers."
"Yeh, we-all ust to grin at him for fuddling about on the sile before
he'd seed anythin'--but golly! he got crops like-as-how we never saw
raised before."
"I could try the same methods," said Natalie musingly.
"He worked over the sile every year, and never planted the same crops in
the same places. He called it a sort of rotary process, and he tol' me
my crops would double ef I did it."
"Did he mix in the doctorings every year, too?" asked Natalie.
"Sure! That's why he sent little boxes of dirt to Washerton--to find out
just what to use in certain qualities of sile."
"Then I ought to do it, too, hadn't I?" asked she.
"Not this year, 'cause he said the last year he did it, that now he
could skip a year or two. But you've gotta mix in good fertilizer before
you plant. Then you'se kin laff at all us old fogy farmers what stick to
old-fashioned ways."
Farmer Ames laughed heartily as if to encourage his young student, and
to show how she might laugh after harvesting. Natalie gazed at him with
a fascinated manner, for his lower lip had such a peculiar way of being
sucked in under his upper teeth when he laughed. Not until Mrs. James
explained this, by saying that Farmer Ames had no lower teeth, did she
lose interest in this mannerism.
"I know all about the tools a farmer has to use in his work, Mr. Ames,"
bragged Natalie.
"Oh, do yeh? Wall then, you kin get the rake and hoe, and fix up the
sile where the plough is done turned it up."
Natalie remembered the paragraph in "Scouting for Girls" and asked:
"Shall I bring the spade, too?"
Just then, Mr. Ames stubbed his toe against a large stone that had been
turned out of its bed. He grumbled forth: "Better git a pickaxe and
crowbar."
"My book didn't mention crowbars and pickaxes, Mr. Ames, so I don't know
what they are," ventured Natalie modestly.
"Every farmer has to have a pick and crow on hand in case he wants to
dig fence-post holes, er move a rock--like the one I just hit."
"Oh! But our fences are all made."
"So are the rocks! But they ain't moved. Better go over the ploughed
dirt and find 'em, then git them outen the garden."
Natalie began to hunt for stones, and as she found any, to carry them
over to the fence where she threw them over in the adjoining field. This
was not very exciting pastime, and her back began to ache horribly.
Mrs. James, who had lingered behind, now joined Natalie and exclaimed in
surprise, "Why, I thought you said the old tenant was so particular with
his garden? He should have removed all these stones, then."
"This section was used fer pertaters an' corn every other year, an' some
stones is good to drain the sile fer them sort of greens. But fer small
truck like you'se plan to plant here, the stones has to get out."
Mrs. James assisted Natalie in throwing out stones which turned up under
the plough-blade, and when that section of the garden was finished, Mr.
Ames mopped his warm brow and looked back over his work with
satisfaction.
"Ef you'se want to plant corn over in that unused spot alongside the
field, it will be a fine place to use. It is not been used fer years fer
truck."
"It looks awfully weedy. Maybe things won't grow there," ventured
Natalie.
"Hoh, them's only top-weeds what can be yanked out. The sile itself is
good as any hereabouts."
"Well, then, Mr. Ames," said Mrs. James, "you'd better plough that
section, too, for the corn or potatoes."
So the rough part of the ground by the fence-line was ploughed up, but
the quantity of stones found in the soil was appalling to Natalie. Mr.
Ames chuckled at her expression.
"Don't worry about seein' so many, 'cuz you only has to pick out one
stone at a time, you know. Ef you does this one at a time, widdout
thinkin' of how many there seem to be afore your eyes, you soon git them
all out an' away."
"I see Mr. Ames is a good moralizer," smiled Mrs. James.
He nodded his head, and then suggested that he visit the barnyard to see
if any old compost was left about by the former tenant. If so, it would
be a good time to dig it under in the ploughed soil.
"Oh, I want to go with Mr. Ames, Jimmy, to see just what compost he
considers good," exclaimed Natalie, dancing away.
Mrs. James watched her go and smiled. The tonic of being in the country
and working on the farm was beginning to tell already. Before she
resumed her task of picking up stones, however, the clarion voice of
Rachel came from the kitchen porch.
"Hey, Mis' James! I'se got lunch all ready to eat!"
As the lady was well-nigh starved because of the early breakfast and the
work in the earth, she sighed in relief. Now she would have a spell in
which to rest and gain courage to go on with the stoning. This showed
that it was not interesting to Mrs. James, but she was determined to
carry it through.
Natalie ran indoors soon after Mrs. James and went to the dining-room
where the luncheon was served. She was so eager to tell what Farmer Ames
told her that she hardly saw that Rachel had prepared her favorite
dessert--berry tarts.
"Jimmy, Mr. Ames knows more about farming and soil than books! He says a
mixed compost from the stables and barnyard makes the best of all
fertilizers."
"His logic sounds plausible, Natty, but we haven't any such compost to
use, and perhaps never will have if we wish to use it from our own
barns," said Mrs. James regretfully.
"But Mr. Ames said he could sell us some of that grade compost, if we
needed any. He says he does not believe our soil needs fertilizing this
year, as it is so rich already."
"That is splendid news, as it will save us much time in seeding, too,"
returned Mrs. James.
"I wanted to show him that I knew something about composts, so I told
him about what I read in the book for Scouts last night:--that one could
use a commercial fertilizer if one had no barnyard manure available. He
looked at me amazed, and I explained that many farmers used four-parts
bone-dust to one part muriate of potash and mixed it well. This would
fertilize a square rod of land. I felt awfully proud of myself as I
spoke, but he soon made me feel humble again, by saying, 'Do you spread
it out on top of the ground after the seed is in, Miss Natalie, or do
you put it under the sile to het up the roots?'"
Mrs. James laughed and asked, "What could you say?"
"That's just it--I didn't know, Jimmy; so I made a guess at it. I
replied: 'Why, I mix it very carefully all through the soil'--and Jimmy!
I struck it right first time!" laughed she.
Mr. Ames had finished his dinner (so he called it) long before Natalie
and her chaperone, and when they started to leave the house they found
that he was hard at work removing the rest of the stones from the
ploughed ground.
"Oh, I'm so glad of that, Jimmy!" cried Natalie, as she watched the
farmer at work.
"Well, to tell the truth, Natalie, I'm not sorry to find that job taken
from us," laughed Mrs. James. "I found it most tiresome and with no
encouragement from the stones."
"Let's do something else, Jimmy, and let Mr. Ames finish the
stone-work," suggested Natalie, quickly. Just then Rachel came out on
the back steps of the kitchen porch.
"Mis' James, Farmeh Ames say foh you-all to drive ole Bob back to his
house en' fetch a load of compos' what he says is back of his barns. His
man knows about it. Den you kin brung along dem leetle plants what is
weeded out of his garden and keep 'em down cellar fer to-night."
Natalie felt elated at this novel suggestion of work, thereby freeing
them both from the irksome task of stoning the garden. And Mrs. James
laughed as she pictured herself driving the farm-wagon on the county
road where an endless stream of automobiles constantly passed.
But she was courageous, and soon the two were gayly chattering, as Bob
stumbled and stamped along the macadam road. Above the clatter of loose
wheels and rattling boards in the floor of the old wagon, the merry
laughter of Natalie could be heard by the autoists, as they passed the
"turn-out" from Green Hill Farm.
Having reached the Ames's farm and found the handy-man who would load up
the barnyard compost in the wagon for them, Natalie asked him many
questions that had been interesting her.