“Why, last year Miss Ryerson cleared two thousand above the wages of her woman she keeps now to help her out. Of course there’s more in making such things than meets the eye of those that hasn’t been inside the preservin’ kettle, so to speak. It’s the keepin’ sound and eatin’ well that counts, and that’s why, like everything else, for every ten that tries the business, nine drop out because they pinch and neglect, and slop somewhere, and don’t give the best there is. In eatin’ there’s always a market for the best. But jam and jell won’t do for you, for let alone not havin’ experience, you’d have to put out everything for a season to catch your market, same as they cast away samples of new soap and bakin’ powder.
“Oh, yes, I almost forgot that you were askin’ about that man for the ploughing! Enoch saw a big strong Dane, or Swede, or some of those north-country people, down at the smithy last night. He’s come here lately, and hired the little Bisbee cottage on the river road—plans to fix it up, and plant a bit of garden, ’n make it ready for his sweetheart that’s coming over in the fall. They say he’s got a bit of money saved and table boards at Bisbee’s sister’s. He wants to work on shares or by the day this season, so’s to have time for his own work between. He brought a letter to Mr. Denny, the printer down at the _Bee_ office, and he says he’ll recommend him willing. Somebody like that, steady, and who would go ahead, would be better for a girl like you than a wild Polack that you’d have to manage, or one of our town boys that would likely feel called to boss you. Father says the fellow doesn’t own a horse mower yet, but we’ll lend ours, and you’ve got a plough and scythes, as I suppose Keith showed you. Father’ll bargain with him for you, and plan out the work—he thinks it’ll be better to let the man see you’ve a farming friend that knows, to come between you and what you’ve never seen done, and in consequence hev no notion of.”
Thanking the dear old lady both with words and the spontaneous kiss of sudden gratitude, which she prized far more, Brooke walked home in a sort of dream. She passed, quite unheeded, the blooming hepaticas clustering amid the dry leaves in a sunny spot on the road bank, though she had been looking among their thick ruddy leaves for the flowers ever since Stead had shown her where they were bedded a week before. A song-sparrow, perched on a twig of silvery pussy-willow, threw back his head as she passed, and poured forth the most melodious verse of his changeful song. She scarcely heard it, or if she did, paid no heed, any more than she did to the fact that Tatters had flushed a partridge down in one of the wood roads that start from the highway and end in silence, leaving her for its ecstatic but fruitless quest.