The bundles we brought home supplemented our stores of needful articles, and our life began to take on a regular routine.  The carpenter came and put up the shelves, and made such changes as my wife desired; then he aided me in repairing the out-buildings.  I finished pruning the trees, while Merton worked manfully at the raspberries, for we saw that this was a far more pressing task than gathering wood, which could be done to better advantage in the late autumn.  Every morning Winnie and Bobsey were kept steadily busy in carrying our trimmings to the brush heap, which now began to assume vast proportions, especially as the refuse from the grape-vine and raspberry bushes was added to it.  As the ground became settled after the frost was out, I began to set the stakes by the side of such raspberry canes as needed tying up; and here was a new light task for the two younger children.  Bobsey’s little arms could go around the canes and hold them close to the stake, while Winnie, a sturdy child, quickly tied them with a coarse, cheap string that I had bought for the purpose.  Even my wife came out occasionally and helped us at this work.  By the end of the last week in March I had all the fruit-trees fairly pruned and the grape-vines trimmed and tied up, and had given Merton much help among the raspberries.  In shallow boxes of earth on the kitchen table, cabbage, lettuce, and tomato seeds were sprouting beside Mousie’s plants.  The little girl hailed with delight every yellowish green germ that appeared above the soil.

The hens had spent their first few days in inspecting their quarters and becoming familiar with them; but one morning there was a noisy cackle, and Winnie soon came rushing in with three fresh-laid eggs.  A week later we had all we could use, and my wife began to put some by for the first brooding biddies to sit upon.

The first day of April promised to be unusually dry and warm, and I said at the breakfast table:  “This is to be a great day.  We’ll prove that we are not April-fools by beginning our garden.  I was satisfied yesterday that a certain warm slope was dry enough to dig and plant with hardy vegetables, and I’ve read and studied over and over again which to plant first, and how to plant them.  I suppose I shall make mistakes, but I wish you all to see how I do it, and then by next spring we shall have learned from experience how to do better.  No doubt, some things might have been planted before, but we’ve all been too busy.  Now, Merton, you go and harness old Bay to the cart I bought with the place, and I’ll get out my treasure of seeds.  Mousie, by ten o’clock, if the sun keeps out of the clouds, you can put on your rubbers and join us.”

Soon all was bustle and excitement.  Among my seeds were two quarts of red and two of white onion sets, or little bits of onions, which I had kept in a cool place, so that they should not sprout before their time.  These I took out first.  Then with Merton I went to the barn-yard and loaded up the cart with the finest and most decayed manure we could find, and this was dumped on the highest part of the slope that I meant to plant.