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Updated: May 14, 2025
During the last week of August the potatoes were fully ripe, and Merton, Winnie, Bobsey, and I worked manfully, sorting the large from the small, as they were gathered. The crop turned out very well, especially on the lower side of the field, where the ground had been rather richer and moister than in the upper portion.
I took the hint at once, and set Merton at work, saying that Winnie and Bobsey could gather all the worms he wanted. Then I went for a half-bushel of early potatoes, and Mr. Jones showed me how to cut them so as to leave at least two good "eyes" to each piece. Half an hour later it occurred to me to see how Merton was getting on.
"Now, Winnie and Bobsey," I said, "it is time for you to do your part. Just stick these little onions in the trench about four inches apart;" and I gave each of them a little stick of the right length to measure the distance; for they had vague ideas of four inches. "Be sure," I continued, "that you get the bottom of the onion down. This is the top, and this is the bottom.
But it seemed to me that Melissa Daggett and her kin with their flashy papers, and the influence of the street for Merton and Bobsey, involved more danger to my little band than all the scalping Modocs that ever whooped. The children could not step outside the door without danger of meeting some one who would do them harm.
Oh the delicious sense of safety and warmth given by it already! I seized Mousie, floundered through the snow up to my knees, and placed her in a big rocking-chair. Mr. Jones followed with Winnie, and Merton came in with Bobsey on his back. The little fellow was under such headway in crying that he couldn't stop at once, although his tears were rapidly giving place to laughter.
Beneath us stretched the sandy beach. We elderly people were glad enough to sit down and rest, but the children forgot even the lunch-baskets, so eager were they to run upon the sand in search of shells. All went well until an unusually high wave came rolling in. The children scrambled out of its way, with the exception of Bobsey, who was caught and tumbled over, and lay kicking in the white foam.
Winnie and Bobsey began to gather these burrs from the lower limbs of an immense tree, eighteen feet in circumference, and to stamp out the half-brown nuts within. "One or two frosts will ripen them and open the burrs," I said, and then the children began to long for the frost which I dreaded.
"One day is lesson day; the next is play day." "I brought this stick for you," said Dickie, presenting Dot a smooth willow stick. "If Bobsey Rabbit or Tony Spider play any tricks, just give 'em a walloping." "Thank you, Dickie. I will hang it over my desk, but I think I shall not need to use it." "She may wallop you, Dickie," laughed Pete as they hopped home. At last the school-room was finished.
I reached the brow of the hill just in time to see him throw a stick into the creek, lose his balance, and fall in. With an exclamation of terror, his own cry forming a faint echo, I sprang forward frantically, but the swift current caught and bore him away. My agonized shout as I saw Bobsey swept away by the swollen current of the Moodna Creek was no more prompt than his own shrill scream.
If this should be true of sweet corn, Lima-beans, and even the melons on which the children had set their hearts, we must be chary of consuming them ourselves. This I explained in such a way that all except Bobsey saw the wisdom of it, or, rather, the necessity. As yet, Bobsey's tendencies were those of a consumer, and not of a producer or saver.
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