“We must have more help, by the way.  That horse-and-buggy man, Judson, is almost sure to come, and I will find another.  Some of you will have to bunk in the hay for the present, for I am going to send out a woman to help your wife.  Six men can do a lot of work, but there is a tremendous lot of work to do.  We must fit the ground and plant at least three thousand apple trees before the end of November, and we ought to fence this whole plantation.  Speaking of fences reminds me that I must order the cedar posts.  Have you any idea how many posts it will take to fence this farm as we have platted it?  I suppose not.  Well, I can tell you.  Twenty-two hundred and fifty at one rod apart, or 1850 at twenty feet apart.  These posts must be six feet above and three feet below ground.  They will cost eighteen cents each.  That item will be $333, for there are seven miles of fence, including the line fence between me and my north neighbor.  I am going to build that fence myself, and then I shall know whose fault it is if his stock breaks through.  Of course some of the old posts are good, but I don’t believe one in twenty is long enough for my purpose.”

“What do you buy cedar posts for, when you have enough better ones on the place?” asked Thompson.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, down in the wood yonder there’s enough dead white oak, standing or on the ground, to make three thousand, nine-foot posts, and one seasoned white oak will outlast two cedars, and it is twice as strong.”

“Well, that’s good!  How much will it cost to get them out?”

“About five cents apiece.  A couple of smart fellows can make good wages at that price.”

“Good.  We will save thirteen cents each.  They will cost $93 instead of $333.  I don’t know everything yet, do I, Thompson?”

“You learn easy, I reckon.”

“Keep your eyes and ears open, and if you find any one who can do this job, let him have it, for we are going to be too busy with other things at present.  It’s time for me to be off.  I cannot be out again till Thursday, for I must find a man, a woman, and a team of horses and all that goes with them.  I’ll see you on the 8th at any rate.”

I was dead tired when I reached home; but there wasn’t a grain of depression in my fatigue,—­rather a sense of elation.  I felt that for the first time in thirty years real things were doing and I was having a hand in them.  The fatigue was the same old tire that used to come after a hard day on my father’s farm, and the sense was so suggestive of youth that I could not help feeling younger.  I have never gotten away from the faith that the real seed of life lies hidden in the soil; that the man who gives it a chance to germinate is a benefactor, and that things done in connection with land are about the only real things.  I have grown younger, stronger, happier, with each year of personal contact with the soil.  I am thankful for seven years of it, and