be careful in weedin’ then, or you’ll so disturb the young, tender sass that it’ll dry up, too.  See, I’ll pull some weeds carelessly.  Now obsarve that the beets are half jerked up also.  Of course that won’t answer.  I’ll come over this afternoon with my cultivator, and we’ll tackle the corn and pertaters, and make such a swath among these green Philistines that you’ll sleep better to-night.  But ye’re goin’ to come out right, mind, I tell ye so; and I’ve seen mor’n one city squash come to the country with the idee that they were goin’ to beat us punkins all holler.”

And he left us laughing and hopeful.

“Come, Winnie and Bobsey, begin here on each side of me.  I’ll show you this morning and then I trust you can be left to do the weeding carefully by yourselves to-morrow.  Pressing as the work is, you shall have your afternoons until the berries are ripe.”

“Can’t I help, too?” asked Mousie.

I looked into her eager, wistful face, but said, firmly:  “Not now, dear.  The sun is too hot.  Toward night, perhaps, I’ll let you do a little.  By helping mamma in the house you are doing your part.”

We made good progress, and the two younger children speedily learned the knack of working carefully, so as not to disturb the little vegetables.  I soon found that weeding was back-aching work for me, and therefore “spelled” myself by hoeing out the spaces between the rows.  By the time the music of the dinner-bell sounded, hosts of our enemies were slain.

Mr. Jones, true to his promise, was on hand at one o’clock with his cultivator, and began with the corn, which was now a few inches high.  Merton and I followed with hoes, uncovering the tender shoots on which earth had been thrown, and dressing out the soil into clean flat hills.  As our neighbor had said, it was astonishing how much work the horse-cultivator performed in a short time.  I saw that it would be wise for us, another year, to plant in a way that would permit the use of horse-power.  Even in the garden this method should be followed as far as possible.

Mr. Jones was not a man of half-way measures.  He remained helping us, till he had gone through the corn, once each way, twice between the long rows of potatoes, then twice through all the raspberry rows, giving us two full days of his time altogether.

I handed him a dollar in addition to his charge, saying that I had never paid out money with greater satisfaction.

“Well,” he said, with a short, dry laugh, “I’ll take it this time, for my work is sufferin’ at home, but I didn’t want you to get discouraged.  Now, keep the hoes flyin’, and you’re ahead once more.  Junior’s at it early and late, I can tell ye.”

“So I supposed, for we’ve missed him.”

“Good reason.  When I’m through with him he’s ready enough to crawl into his little bed.”

So were we for a few days, in our winning fight with the weeds.  One hot afternoon, about three o’clock, I saw that Merton was growing pale, and beginning to lag, and I said, decidedly:  “Do you see that tree there?  Go and lie down under it till I call you.”