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"This is better than ploughin', ma'am?" challenged Cai in his glee. "So much better," agreed the widow, smiling up, "that I've almost a mind to forgive the pair of you."
I thought of my early boyhood, of the hard life of 'grubbin'' and 'milkin'' and 'fencin'' and 'ploughin'' and 'ring-barkin'', &c., and all for nothing. The few months at the little bark-school, with a teacher who couldn't spell. The cursed ambition or craving that tortured my soul as a boy ambition or craving for I didn't know what for! For something better and brighter, anyhow.
A wager is a wager, however; and the judges' decision was clamoured for, with threats that, until it was given, the Agricultural Demonstration would not be suffered to proceed. Mr Sam Nicholls consulted hastily with Mr Widger, and announced the award as follows: "We consider Captain Hunken's ploughin' to be the very worst ploughin' we've ever seen.
But 'Bias's face reflected none of the mirth he had awakened. "I mayn't know much about ploughin', Cai Hocken " he began. "Ah? Good day, Captain Hunken!" interposed Mrs Bosenna. "Good-day to you, ma'am." He raised his hat without answering her smile.
"Cap'n," he said, reassuringly, "jes let's hear Uncle Nehemiah talk some mo', an' ef I can't see no mo' likely work fur me 'n ploughin', I'll think myself mighty safe." They felt like three conspirators as after supper they drew their chairs around the fire with the unsuspicious Uncle Nehemiah.
Yup, she wus red-hot on the mission sociables an' eatin' off'n chiny, an' wa'n't satisfied wi' noospaper on the table; an' took the notion she'd got pimples, an' worried hell out o' her old man till he bo't a razor an' turned his features into a patch o' fall ploughin', an' kind o' bulldozed her mother into lashin' her stummick wi' some noofangled fixin' as wouldn't meet round her nowheres noways.
I'm sure we never had such queer weather afore. But them bugs are the hardest critturs to kill. It's almost impossible to dispose on 'em; and it does seem enough, what with ploughin' and plantin' and harrowin' and hoein' to git a few potatoes, and like enough, wet weather to rot 'em, without havin' to fight over 'em, for the last chance, with a whole army of varmint.
There's half our plantin' to be done yet, and some of the ground hasn't got the last ploughin'. Harvest won't come without seed-time; for no man, let him be great, or let him be small and it does seem to me a sort o' wastin' of the Lord's blessin's, to be hangin' gates, and diggin' holes for that the thing the captain mentioned when there's no visible danger in sight to recommend the measure to prudence, as it might be."
"Well, I'm proper tired," she said, bumping her basket down with a sigh of relief. "That Whiteleaf Hill do spend one so after a day's marketing." Then glancing at the muddy boots on the hearth: "Bin ploughin'?" Mr Darvell nodded again, and looked inquiringly at his wife's basket. Answering this silent question she said: "I sold 'em fairly well. Mrs Reuben got more; but hers was fatter."
Lilac looked at it with a puzzled air; she saw nothing handsome in it. It was enormously thick and deeply wrinkled across the toes, which were turned upwards as though with many and many a weary tramp. "I call 'em handsome," pursued Joshua. "Because for why? Because they're fit for ploughin' in the stiffest soil. Because they'll keep out wet and never give in the seams.
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