Page:Man's Country (1923).pdf/19

 But when Mr. Judson stepped out of his front door, he noted with surprise that the west wind, blowing all night, had dried the street surface completely, and reasoned that if it had dried the street completely, it would have dried the garden tolerably. To make proof of this he thrust a spading fork into the soil and brought up a huge lump of it. "George," he decided, "you spade up the cabbage patch today, and we'll be getting it in shape for the peas and beans."

He said this quite casually, as if spading up the erstwhile cabbage patch did not represent at least three hours of back-breaking toil to a lad of George's size. It was the elder brother who beamed more happily now and the younger whose smile was sickly.

Now it chanced that as Malachi had lifted that single experimental forkful of earth, the folded newspaper fell unnoticed from his pocket and lay amid the damp weeds unregarded.

George spaded one row across with fine vigor, then paused to reflect upon the hardness of toil in general and the magnitude of this task in particular. He decided to divide it into two parts—one hour's work in the morning and two in the afternoon, when he should have grown more accustomed to such herculean labors and when he would naturally be the stronger with increasing age and another meal inside him. He decided