And I knew then that the destined time had arrived for my planting.  That afternoon I marked out my corn-field, driving the mare to my home-made wooden marker, carefully observant of the straightness of the rows; for a crooked corn-row is a sort of immorality.  I brought down my seed corn from the attic, where it had hung waiting all winter, each ear suspended separately by the white, up-turned husks.  They were the selected ears of last year’s crop, even of size throughout, smooth of kernel, with tips well-covered—­the perfect ones chosen among many to perpetuate the highest excellencies of the crop.  I carried them to the shed next my barn, and shelled them out in my hand machine:  as fine a basket of yellow dent seed as a man ever saw.  I have listened to endless discussions as to the relative merits of flint and dent corn.  I here cast my vote emphatically for yellow dent:  it is the best Nature can do!

I found my seed-bag hanging, dusty, over a rafter in the shed, and Harriet sewed a buckle on the strip that goes around the waist.  I cleaned and sharpened my hoe.

“Now,” I said to myself, “give me a good day and I am ready to plant.”

The sun was just coming up on Friday, looking over the trees into a world of misty and odorous freshness.  When I climbed the fence I dropped down in the grass at the far corner of the field.  I had looked forward this year with pleasure to the planting of a small field by hand—­the adventure of it—­after a number of years of horse planting (with Horace’s machine) of far larger fields.  There is an indescribable satisfaction in answering, “Present!” to the roll-call of Nature; to plant when the earth is ready, to cultivate when the soil begins to bake and harden, to harvest when the grain is fully ripe.  It is the chief joy of him who lives close to the soil that he comes, in time, to beat in consonance with the pulse of the earth; its seasons become his seasons; its life his life.

Behold me, then, with a full seed-bag suspended before me, buckled both over the shoulders and around the waist, a shiny hoe in my hand (the scepter of my dominion), a comfortable, rested feeling in every muscle of my body, standing at the end of the first long furrow there in my field on Friday morning—­a whole spring day open before me!  At that moment I would not have changed my place for the place of any king, prince, or president.

At first I was awkward enough, for it has been a long time since I have done much hand planting; but I soon fell into the rhythmic swing of the sower, the sure, even, accurate step; the turn of the body and the flexing of the wrists as the hoe strikes downward; the deftly hollowed hole; the swing of the hand to the seed-bag; the sure fall of the kernels; the return of the hoe; the final determining pressure of the soil upon the seed.  One falls into it and follows it as he would follow the rhythm of a march.

Even the choice of seed becomes automatic, instinctive.  At first there is a conscious counting by the fingers—­five seeds: