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As share as Oi'm a livin' corpse, the very first spoonful fetched her all right. Oh, but it's God's own gift, an' it's be His blessin' we know how to use it. An' it don't do to just go an' dig it when ye want it. It has to be grubbed when the flower ain't thayer. Ye see, the strength ain't in both places to oncet.
"How did you discover this?" Bryce demanded. "Judge Moore, representing the new owner, called round this morning and took me in tow. He said his client knew the property held for me a certain sentimental value which wasn't transferred in the deed, and so the Judge had been instructed to have the skid-road planked and the forest trail grubbed out for me.
Pomp seized the handles, went off with the barrow, caught the edge against the stump of a tree, one of the many not yet grubbed up, upset the ashes, and bounded off into the forest, to stand watching us from behind a tree, as if in dread of punishment; but seeing me roaring with laughter, he came cautiously back, grinning as if it was after all an excellent joke.
The willows have been grubbed out imis sedibus, as our friend Virgil would say it, and not merely chopped off; and the thoroughness of the work gives emphasis to the satisfaction. The overalls, the heavy shoes, and the sunshade hat all belong in the picture. But the entire wardrobe costs less than the hat I wear on Sunday. Then the comfort of these inexpensive habiliments!
He grubbed up the trees and underbrush near the big white oak, removed his father's hen-house to the cleared spot, fitted it up comfortably for a temporary dwelling, and dug a cellar in the declivity of a hill near by. To this humble abode he conducted his young bride, and there his two first children were born. The second was named Isaac Tatem Hopper, and is the subject of this memoir.
But his anxiety to learn the fate of the proprietors, and his fears as to what that fate might be, increased with every step. When he entered upon the terrace new scenes of desolation were visible. The balustrade was broken down, the walls destroyed, the borders overgrown with weeds, and the fruit-trees cut down or grubbed up.
Trees hollowed out and spanned from field to field served as gutters for irrigation; shepherds clad in white felt blankets sat huddled upon the ground behind huge boulders, oblivious of time and of the boisterous wind, while their sheep and goats grubbed away on the scanty grass the moorland provided; high up we saw forest fires, making the earth black and desolate; ruins almost everywhere recalled to one's mind the image of a past prosperity, which now were replaced by traces of misery, exterior influences which seemed to breed upon the traveler a deep discouragement.
Much out-of-door life was good for her, and in garden and green-house there was plenty of light labor she could do. So she grubbed contentedly in the wholesome earth, weeding and potting, learning to prune and bud, and finding Mrs. Wilkins was quite right in her opinion of the sanitary virtues of dirt.
"He and I worked barefoot, grubbed it, plowed, mowed, and cradled together; plowed corn, gathered it, and shucked corn." The sum of it all is that from his boyhood until after he was of age, most of his time was spent in the hard and varied muscular labor of the farm and the forest, sometimes on his father's place, sometimes as a hired hand for other pioneers.
His cabin was warm, he was full-fed; the squaw grubbed his living for him out of the frozen forests. He did not want to be forced to face the competition of civilized existence again. He was dirty, care-free; his furs supplied food and clothes for him and certain rags for her, and filled his cupboard with strong drink.
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