The Master-Knot of Human Fate | Page 6

He wound the clock mechanically, and read the titles of the books aloud. A chemistry, a book on electricity, a Bible, a worn copy of Tennyson, the "Yankee at King Arthur's Court," and a patent medicine almanac made up the list.
"There is one mysterious thing," he said, "and that is the packing cases out under the shed. I can't make up my mind what they contain, and I don't quite feel that we ought to open them; I should like to; they look as if they might hold--"
"Canned goods?" she said interrogatively.
"I was going to say books, but I suppose we need canned lobster more," he assented. "If you are sure they contain oats, peas, beans, or barley, or anything that the farmer knows, that would justify me in opening them." He took up a hatchet, and they went out and inspected the boxes, which were very large and strong.
"Let's not open them yet," she said. "There is one other treasure in one of the bureau drawers; it is a box with seeds of almost every kind. They ought to have known most of those things wouldn't grow up this close to timber-line."
"Probably they were sent by the congressman from this district," Adam said dryly. "But I'm not so sure they won't grow. Have you noticed how warm it is, how very unlike what it has always been? Let us go to the stables, and see what we can find there."
They went up a path, past a garden, fenced with woven wire, through which the chickens looked longingly. Under some sashes forming a primitive greenhouse, lettuce and radishes were making good headway. Nothing else had come up, though there were many beds, with small slips of board, like miniature tombstones, showing what had been planted. The stables and cow-barn were all under one roof, and would accommodate several horses and a few cows. There was hay and fodder in a lot adjoining, and a few ordinary farm implements, a plow, a harrow, and a cultivator in a shed addition.
"Do you know what it is for?" she asked mischievously, as he pulled out the plow.
"Do you think I never remembered the granger vote in my ambitions?" he answered. "I can plow, and I have planted and snapped corn, and cut fodder, and dug potatoes--I wonder if there are any here?"
"Yes," she answered; "in the cellar, at least a bushel, mostly gone to eyes, but I forget how thick to cut them. If we were only 'The Swiss Family Robinson,'" she went on, "we should find yams and pineapples and oranges and sugar-cane and bananas coming up between the rocks. As it is, I am thankful to the congressman who sent the peas and morning-glories."
"There is only about enough wheat and corn to plant fifteen acres," Adam said, making a rough calculation in his mind. "I will plow a little over that, so as to have a patch for the potatoes, and get it ready as soon as possible."
"I know how to plant corn and potatoes," she said eagerly. "Just as soon as you get part of the land ready, I will begin. You didn't know I was brought up on a ranch, did you? I never was very fond of recalling it. It is a perpetual round of conditions unlike any theory ever heard of." She shrugged her shoulders, and stopped at the rude table under the porch to crumb some slices of what looked like a kind of cornbread.
"What is it?" he asked curiously.
"That is to enable us to make light of our troubles," she replied solemnly. "Or, for thy more sweet understanding it is, or at least I hope it will be, yeast. I found a Twin Brothers yeast cake, and from it, behold the brethren! I know that raised bread is unhealthy, and that to get the worth of your money you ought to eat the bran also, and that the best bread, from the hygienic standpoint, is made from wheat-paste, and is about the consistency of sole leather; but even if yeast does shorten our lives, I don't know that I shall give it up on that account."
The planting of their crops took several weeks, and was very hard work, for neither of them was an expert farmer. When the corn and wheat came up there were almost no weeds, and the stand was better than usual for sod land; but they were kept busy warding off the horses and cattle that preferred the fresh young corn and wheat to the indifferent natural grass.
"I thought," she said wearily, after driving away the intruders for the third time,--"I thought fences were a sign of civilization, but they seem to be the first necessity of the wilderness."
She was sitting on a rock, fanning her flushed face with her sombrero,