For instance, the neighboring farmers did not plant their tomato seeds until it was pretty safe to do so in the open ground. The cannery did not want the tomato pack to come on until late in August. By that time the cream of the prices for garden-grown tomatoes had been skimmed by the early truckers.
The same with sweet corn and green beans. The cannery demanded these vegetables at so late a date that the market-price was generally low.
These facts Hiram bore in mind as he planned his season's work, and especially the kitchen garden. This latter he planned to be about two acres in extent--rather a large plot, but he proposed to set his rows of almost every vegetable far enough apart to be worked with a horse cultivator.
Some crops--for instance onions, carrots, and other "fine stuff"--must be weeded by hand to an extent, and if the soil is rich enough rows twelve or fifteen inches apart show better results.
Between such rows a wheelhoe can be used to good advantage, and that was one tool--with a seed-sowing combination--that Hiram had told Mrs. Atterson she must buy if he was to practically attend to the whole farm for her. Hand-hoeing, in both field and garden crops, is antediluvian.
Thus, during this week and a half of preparation, Hiram made ready for the uprooting of Mrs. Atterson from the boarding house in Crawberry to the farm some distance out of Scoville.
The good lady had but one wagon load of goods to be transferred from her old quarters to the new home. Many of the articles she brought were heirlooms which she had stored in the boarding house cellar, or articles associated with her happy married life, which had been shortened by her husband's death when he was comparatively a young man.
These Mrs. Atterson saw piled on the wagon early on Saturday morning, and she had insisted upon climbing upon the seat beside the driver herself and riding with him all the way.
The boarders gathered on the steps to see her go. The two spinster ladies had already taken possession, and had served breakfast to the disgruntled members of Mother Atterson's family.
"You'll be back again," prophesied Mr. Crackit, shaking the old lady by the hand. "And when you do, just let me know. I'll come and boardwith you."
"I wouldn't have you in my house again, Fred Crackit, for two farms," declared the ex-boarding house keeper, with asperity.
"I hope you told these people about my hot water, Mrs. Atterson," croaked Mr. Peebles, from the step, where he stood muffled in a shawl because of the raw morning air.
"If I didn't you can tell 'em yourself," returned she, with satisfaction.
And so it went--the good-byes of these unappreciative boarders selfish to the last! Mother Atterson sighed--a long, happy, and satisfying sigh-- when the lumbering wagon turned the first corner.
"Thanks be!" she murmured. "I sha'n't care if they don't have a driblet of gravy at supper tonight."Then she shook herself and stared straight ahead. On the very next corner--she had insisted that none of the other people at the house should observe their flitting--stood two figures, both forlorn.
Old Lem Camp, with a lean suit-case at his feet, and Sister with a bulging carpetbag which she had brought with her months before from the charity institution, and into which she had stuffed everything she owned in the world.
Their faces brightened perceptibly when they beheld Mrs. Atterson perched high beside the driver on the load of furniture and bedding. The driver drew in his span of big horses and the wheels grated against the curb.
"You climb right in behind, Mr. Camp," said the good lady. "There's room for you up under the canvas top--and I had him spread a mattress so't you can take it easy all the way, if you like.
"Sister, you scramble up here and sit in betwixt me and this man. And do look out--you're spillin' things out o' that bag like it was a Christmas cornucopia. Come on, now! Toss it behind us, onto them other things. There! we'll go on--and no more stops, I hope, till we reach the farm."But that couldn't be. It was a long drive, and the man was good to his team. He rested them at the top of every hill, and sometimes at the bottom. They had to stop two hours for dinner and to "breathe 'em," as the man said.
At that time Mother Atterson produced a goodsized market basket--her familiar companion when she had hunted bargains in the city--and it was filled with sandwiches, and pickles, and crackers, and cookies, and a whole boiled fowl (fowl were cheaper and more satisfying than the scrawny chickens then in market) and hard-boiled eggs, and cheese, with numbers of other less important eatables tucked into corners of the basket to "wedge" the larger packages of food.
The four picnicked in the sun, with the furniture wagon to break the keen wind, passing around hot coffee in a can, from hand to hand, the driver having built a campfire to heat the coffee beside the country road.
