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 looking animal, the hog, when he isn’t treated like one.”

He looked dejected. “I’d rather not go to school on—hogs.”

She took off the felt hat and tossed it over to the old couch by the window; smoothed her hair back with the flat of her palm. You saw that the soft dark hair was liberally sprinkled with gray now, but the eyes were bright and clear as ever.

“You know, Sobig, this is what they call a paying farm—as vegetable farms go. We're out of debt, the land’s in good shape, the crop promises well if we don’t have another rainy cold spring like last year’s. But no truck garden is going to make its owner rich these days, with labour so high and the market what it is, and the expense of hauling and all. Any truck farmer who comes out even thinks he’s come out ahead.”

“I know it.” Rather miserably.

“Well. I’m not complaining, son. I’m just telling you. I’m having a grand time. When I see the asparagus plantation actually yielding, that I planted ten years ago, I’m as happy as if I’d stumbled on a gold mine. I think, sometimes, of the way your father objected to my planting the first one. April, like this, in the country, with everything coming up green and new in the rich black loam—I can’t tell you. And when I know that it goes to market as food—the best kind of food, that keeps people’s bodies clean and clear and flexible and strong! I like to think of