“The hoe is a good teacher,” he answered. “Man that don't hoe his character ev'ry few days won't have any.”
“An' does it kind o' careless.” He drew his hand over his mouth and cleared his throat and went on as if nothing had happened. “These things are a good deal like folks. Some grow up an' some grow down. I used to know a woman that looked like a turnip, and a gal that was like a flower, an' another that was like a pepper-plant, an' a man that was a reg'lar human onion.”
“A garden always reminds me that it's about time to get your hook and line ready,” I suggested.
He stopped and put his hand upon my arm. He glanced up at the sky, and seemed to note the direction of the wind.
“Say, by mighty!” he exclaimed. “You stop, or you'll make trouble.”
“Think of Paradise Valley,” I went on. “It will be green and sprinkled with blossoms, and the brook will be singing as it goes by.”
“You quit!” he answered, with a little gesture of impatience. “Say!” he suggested, with enthusiasm, after a moment, “I wouldn't wonder but what the fish would bite—ye take it on the rapids there.”
We returned to the house and he sat in his chair on the small veranda.
Robins were building their nest on a shelf near him, and were busy with their fetching and weaving.
“Look at the scalawags!” he laughed. “No, there ain't nothin' that's 'fraid o' me some way. I got a club one day an' tried to scare a mouse; but seems so she knew I was only foolin'. Now she's begun to bully me an' fetch her children right into my bedroom, an' I guess I'll have to git mad an' declare war.”
I hailed a boy in the street, and sent him for a team, to be brought immediately after dinner.
When we sat down to eat, Uncle Eb put the same old question:
“Wal, how's ev'rything down there in the city?”
“an' they all look a leetle cross. I like t' pass the time o' day with ev'ry man I meet, but mighty Dinah! they's so many of 'em!—there ain't no use tryin' t' be pleasant. I got t' showin' the whites o' my eyes as bad as any of 'em.” He spoke, laughingly, of a symphony concert to which we had taken him.
“I'll never fergit the man with a p'inter,” he said, his head noddin with amusement. “How he could toss the music! It was like spreadin' hay.” Again his cheery voice, after a moment of silence: “No more meat! Hope Brower, if you don't eat yer dinner, you'll be put to bed.”