Hills of the Shatemuc Part 35

But Elizabeth noticed when Winthrop came in at night, how his little sister attached herself to his side, and with what a loving lip and longing eye.

"Your little sister is very fond of you," she could not help saying, one moment when Winifred had run off.

"Too fond," he said.

"She has a most sensitive organization," said Rufus. "She is too fond of everything that she loves."

"She is not too fond of _you_," thought Elizabeth, as Winifred came back to her other brother, with some little matter which she thought concerned her and him. "'Sensitive organization!'

What queer people these are!"

They were so queer, that Elizabeth thought she would like to see what was the farming work with which their hands were filled and which swallowed up the daily life of these people; and the next day she proposed to go with Winifred when she went the rounds again with her baskets of dinner. Miss Cadwallader was glad of any thing that promised a little variety, so she very willingly made one.

It was a pleasant September day, the great heats gone, a gentler state of the air and the light; summer was just falling gracefully into her place behind the advancing autumn.

It was exceeding pleasant walking, through the still air, and Elizabeth and her cousin enjoyed it. But little Winifred was loaded down with two baskets, one in each hand. They went so for some time.

"Winnie," said Elizabeth at last, "give me one of those -- I'll carry it."

"O no!" said the little girl looking up in some surprise, -- "they're not very heavy -- I don't want any help."

"Give it to me; you shan't carry 'em both."

"Then take the other one," said Winifred, -- "thank you, Miss Elizabeth -- I'm just going to take this in to father, in the field here."

"In the field where? I don't see anybody."

"O because the corn is so high. You'll see 'em directly. This is the bend-meadow lot. Father's getting in the corn."

A few more steps accordingly brought them to a cleared part of the field, where the tall and thick cornstalks were laid on the ground. There, at some distance, they saw the group of workers, picking and husking the yellow corn, the farm wagon standing by. Little Winifred crept under the fence and went to them with her basket, and her companions stood at the fence looking. There were Mr. Landholm, and Asahel, Mr. Doolittle and another man, seen here and there through the rows of corn.

Asahel sat by a heap, husking; Mr. Landholm was cutting down stalks; and bushel baskets stood about, empty, or with their yellow burden shewing above the top.

"I should think farmer's work would be pleasant enough," Rose remarked, as they stood leaning over the fence.

"It looks pretty," said Elizabeth. "But I shouldn't like to pull corn from morning to night; and I don't believe you would."

"O, but men have to work, you know," said Miss Cadwallader.

Winifred came back to them and they went on their way, but Elizabeth would not let her take the basket again. It was a pretty way; past the spring where Sam Doolittle had pushed Winthrop in and Rufus had avenged him; and then up the rather steep woody road that led to the plain of the tableland. The trees stood thick, but the ascent was so rapid that they could only in places hinder the view; and as the travellers went up, the river spread itself out more broad, and Shahweetah lay below them, its boundaries traced out as on a map. A more commanding view of the opposite sh.o.r.e, a new sight of the southern mountains, a deeper draught from nature's free cup, they gained as they went up higher and higher. Elizabeth had seen it often before; she looked and drank in silence; though to-day September was peeping between the hills and shaking his sunny hair in the vallies; -- not crowned like the receding summer with insupportable brilliants.

"I am sorry papa is coming so soon!" said Elizabeth, after she had stood awhile near the top, looking.

"Why I thought you wanted to go home," said her cousin.

"So I do; -- but I don't want to go away from here."

"What do you want to stay for?"

"It is so lovely! --"

"_What_ is so lovely?" asked Miss Cadwallader with a tone of mischief.

Elizabeth turned away and began to walk on, an expression of great disgust upon her face.

"I wish I was blessed with a companion who had three grains of wit!" she said.

Miss Cadwallader's light cloud of ill-humour, it seldom looked more, came on at this; and she pouted till they reached the fence of the ploughed field where the young men were at work.

Here Elizabeth gave up her basket to Winifred; and creeping through the bars they all made for the nearest plough. It happened to be Winthrop's.

"What's the matter?" said he as they came up. "Am I wanted for guard or for oarsman?"

"Neither -- for nothing," said Elizabeth. "Go on, won't you? I want to see what you are doing."

"Ploughing?" said he. "Have you never seen it?"

He went on and they walked beside him; Winifred laughing, while the others watched, at least Elizabeth did minutely, the process of the share in turning up the soil.

"Is it hard work?" she asked.

"No, not here; not when the business is understood."

"Like rowing, I suppose there is a sleight in it?"

"A good deal so."

"What has been growing here?"

"Corn."

"And now when you get to the fence you must just turn about and make another ridge close along by this one?"

"Yes."

"Goodness! -- What's going to be sown here?"

"Wheat."

"And all this work is just to make the ground soft for the seeds!"

"Why wouldn't it do just as well to make holes in the ground and put the seeds in?" said Miss Cadwallader; -- "without taking so much trouble?"

"It is not merely to make the ground soft," said Winthrop gravely, while Elizabeth's bright eye glanced at him to mark his behaviour. "The soil might be broken without being so thoroughly turned. If you see, Miss Elizabeth, -- the slice taken off by the share is laid bottom upwards."

"I see -- well, what is that for?"

"To give it the benefit of the air."

"The benefit of the air! --"

"The air has a sort of enriching and quickening influence upon the soil; -- if the land has time and chance, it can get back from the air a great deal of what it lost in the growing of crops."