I am only required to keep it heated, and not too hot
either; to smoke it often for the death of the bugs; to water it once a
day; to move this and that into the sun and out of the sun pretty
constantly: but she does all the work. We never relinquish that theory.
I have been digging my potatoes, if anybody cares to know it. I planted
them in what are called "Early Rose," --the rows a little less than three
feet apart; but the vines came to an early close in the drought. Digging
potatoes is a pleasant, soothing occupation, but not poetical. It is
good for the mind, unless they are too small (as many of mine are), when
it begets a want of gratitude to the bountiful earth. What small
potatoes we all are, compared with what we might be! We don't plow deep
enough, any of us, for one thing. I shall put in the plow next year, and
give the tubers room enough. I think they felt the lack of it this year:
many of them seemed ashamed to come out so small. There is great
pleasure in turning out the brown-jacketed fellows into the sunshine of a
royal September day, and seeing them glisten as they lie thickly strewn
on the warm soil. Life has few such moments. But then they must be
picked up. The picking-up, in this world, is always the unpleasant part
of it.
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