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 sturdily than the other horse, but had never retracted. It was no quality of meanness in him. Pervus merely was like that.

But the west sixteen! That had been Selina’s most heroic achievement. Her plan, spoken of to Pervus in the first month of her marriage, had taken years to mature; even now was but a partial triumph. She had even descended to nagging.

“Why don’t we put in asparagus?”

“Asparagus!” considered something of a luxury, and rarely included in the High Prairie truck farmer’s products. “And wait three years for a crop!”

“Yes, but then we'd have it. And a plantation’s good for ten years, once it’s started.”

“Plantation! What is that? An asparagus plantation? Asparagus I’ve always heard of in beds.”

“That’s the old idea. Ive been reading up on it. The new way is to plant asparagus in rows, the way you would rhubarb or corn. Plant six feet apart, and four acres anyway.”

He was not even sufficiently interested to be amused. “Yeh, four acres where? In the clay land, maybe.” He did laugh then, if the short bitter sound he made could be construed as indicating mirth. “Out of a book.”

“In the clay land,” Selina urged, crisply. “And out of a book. Every farmer in High Prairie raises cabbage, turnips, carrots, beets, beans, onions, and they’re better quality than ours. That west sixteen isn’t bringing you anything, so what difference does it make if I