At last Mother struck something which brightened him up, and he called Dave.
"Catch Topsy and--" He paused because he remembered the old mare was dead.
"Run over and ask Mister Dwyer to lend me three hoes."
Dave went; Dwyer lent the hoes; and the problem was solved. That was
how we started.
Chapter II.
Our First Harvest
If there is anything worse than burr-cutting or breaking stones, it's
putting corn in with a hoe.
We had just finished. The girls were sowing the last of the grain when
Fred Dwyer appeared on the scene. Dad stopped and talked with him while
we (Dan, Dave and myself) sat on our hoe-handles, like kangaroos on their
tails, and killed flies. Terrible were the flies, particularly when you
had sore legs or the blight.
Dwyer was a big man with long, brown arms and red, bushy whiskers.
"You must find it slow work with a hoe?" he said.
"Well-yes-pretty," replied Dad (just as if he was n't quite sure).
After a while Dwyer walked over the "cultivation", and looked at it hard,
then scraped a hole with the heel of his boot, spat, and said he did n't
think the corn would ever come up. Dan slid off his perch at this, and
Dave let the flies eat his leg nearly off without seeming to feel it; but
Dad argued it out.
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