“That sounds all right, but I don’t think the farmer would recognize himself from that description.  He doesn’t live up to his possibilities, does he?”

“Mighty few people do.  A farmer may be what he chooses to be.  He’s under no greater limitations than a business or a professional man.  If he be content to use his muscle blindly, he will probably fall under his own harrow.  So, too, would the merchant or the lawyer who failed to use his intelligence in his business.  The farmer who cultivates his mind as well as his land, uses his pencil as often as his plough, and mixes brains with brawn, will not fall under his own harrow or any other man’s.  He will never be the drudge of soil or of season, for to a large extent he can control the soil and discount the season.  No other following gives such opportunity for independence and self-balance.”

“Almost thou persuadest me to become a farmer,” said Kate, as we left the porch, where I had been admiring my land while I lectured on the advantages of husbandry.

Polly came out of the rose garden, where she had been examining her flowers and setting her watch, and said:—­

“Kate, you and the grand-girls must stay this month out, anyway.  It seems an age since we saw you last.”

“All right, if Dad will agree not to fire farm fancies and figures at me every time he catches me in an easy-chair.”

“I’ll promise, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”

Four Oaks looked great, and I was tempted to tramp over every acre of it, saying to each, “You are mine”; but first I had a little talk with Thompson.

“Everything has been greased for us this summer,” said Thompson.  “We got a bumper crop of hay, and the oats and corn are fine!  I allow you’ve got fifty-five bushels of oats to the acre in those shocks, and the corn looks like it stood for more than seventy.  We sold nine more calves the end of June, for $104.  Mr. Tom must have a lot of money for you, for in August we sold the finest bunch of shoates you ever saw,—­312 of them.  They were not extra heavy, but they were fine as silk.  Mr. Tom said they netted $4.15 per hundred, and they averaged a little over 260 pounds.  I went down with them, and the buyers tumbled over each other to get them.  I was mighty proud of the bunch, and brought back a check for $3407.”

“Good for you, Thompson!  That’s the best sale yet.”

“Some of the heifers will be coming in the last of this month or the first of next.  Don’t you want to get rid of those five scrub cows?”

“Better wait six weeks, and then you may sell them.  Do you know where you can place them?”

“Jackson was looking at them a few days ago, and said he would give $35 apiece for them; but they are worth more.”

“Not for us, Thompson, and not for him, either, if he saw things just right.  They’re good for scrubs; but they don’t pay well enough for us, and if he wants them he can have them at that price about the middle of October.”