“Nothing—­but to turn it under and give the ground a chance to enrich itself.  All the north meadow we shall let come to the haying—­by the way, that’ll be a jolly time for you to be there.  I believe Sally has great plans for the haying.  The old apple orchard we had carefully pruned in February, and we’re going to plough it—­Sally’s not pleased at that, she says it will be prettier not ploughed; but the poor old roots need to be saved from starving.  We nearly came to blows over that, and of course I was sorry to oppose her about anything that has to do with the beauty of the place.  But the quickest road to lasting improvement is the one we must take, and I hope there’ll be enough more blossoms on the trees in the future to make up for the loss of the grass.”

“You won’t lose ground with Sally by opposing her, now and then.  She’ll come round in the end to seeing you’re right.”

“I’ll have plenty of chances to win favour by opposition with everybody.  Even Mr. Rudd has his ideas about what ought to be, because of what was when he was a boy on the farm up in New Hampshire.  Max wanted the new fence posts of ash, though locust is much more lasting, and there’s plenty to spare in the timber lot.  As for the neighbouring farmers, they’re already keenly alive to our first efforts, and some of them are watching eagerly to see us make mistakes—­but not all.  There are several who are progressive enough themselves to want to see us win out with modern methods.”

“With all your studying, I suppose you’ll make some mistakes.”

“Mistakes!—­Dozens of them.  But we won’t make the same one twice.  Jo, if you could have heard those fellows talk whom I heard on my trip, the ones who run the really successful farms on scientific methods, you wouldn’t wonder at my interest.”

He was still talking away when he turned the car in through the now restored gateway.  It may be worth while to mention that the first thing in which Max had shown a real interest was the restoration of that gateway.  He had declared—­nobody knew why—­that it must be in absolutely correct shape before the Neil Chases came through it again.  So the mason who came to mend the broken chimney found himself, much to his surprise, put first at the tumble-down stone pillars of the gateway.  The carpenter, also, who arrived prepared to repair the porch columns and floor, and to mend the broken shutters, was led at once by the young master of the place to the gateway and instructed that he must make the old gate itself substantial, and hang it so that it should swing true.  But although it was nearly six months since the Chases had tried to buy the place, they had not yet driven through that restored gateway.  Possibly they did not care to be in haste to look at the place they could not own.

“There’s Sally, in the old garden.  She told me she could hardly wait to begin on it,” and Josephine waved her hand at a distant figure with a spade in its hand.  The spade was promptly cast aside and the worker came running around the house to meet the arriving car.  “Isn’t she looking splendidly?” Sally’s friend murmured in her brother’s ear, as the figure came near enough for a pair of very blooming cheeks to show clearly in the April sunshine.