Many times that day I stopped by a field side or at the end of a lane, or at a house-gate, and considered the possibilities of making an attack. Oh, I measured the houses and barns I saw with a new eye! The kind of country I had known so long and familiarly became a new and foreign land, full of strange possibilities. I spied out the men in the fields and did not fail, also, to see what I could of the commissary department of each farmstead as I passed. I walked for miles looking thus for a favourable opening--and with a sensation of embarrassment at once disagreeable and pleasurable. As the afternoon began to deepen I saw that I must absolutely do something: a whole day tramping in the open air without a bite to eat is an irresistible argument.
Presently I saw from the road a farmer and his son planting potatoes in a sloping field. There was no house at all in view.
At the bars stood a light wagon half filled with bags of seed potatoes, and the horse which had drawn it stood quietly, not far off, tied to the fence. The man and the boy, each with a basket on his arm, were at the farther end of the field, dropping potatoes. I stood quietly watching them. They stepped quickly and kept their eyes on the furrows: good workers. I liked the looks of them. I liked also the straight, clean furrows; I liked the appearance of the horse.
"I will stop here," I said to myself.
I cannot at all convey the sense of high adventure I had as I stood there. Though I had not the slightest idea of what I should do or say, yet I was determined upon the attack.
Neither father nor son saw me until they had nearly reached the end of the field.
"Step lively, Ben," I heard the man say with some impatience;
"we've got to finish this field to-day."
"I AM steppin' lively, dad," responded the boy, "but it's awful hot. We can't possibly finish to-day. It's too much."
"We've got to get through here to-day," the man replied grimly;
"we're already two weeks late."
I know just how the man felt; for I knew well the difficulty a farmer has in getting help in planting time. The spring waits for no man. My heart went out to the man and boy struggling there in the heat of their field. For this is the real warfare of the common life.
"Why," I said to myself with a curious lift of the heart, "they have need of a fellow just like me."
At that moment the boy saw me and, missing a step in the rhythm of the planting, the father also looked up and saw me. But neither said a word until the furrows were finished, and the planters came to refill their baskets.
"Fine afternoon," I said, sparring for an opening.
"Fine," responded the man rather shortly, glancing up from his work. I recalled the scores of times I had been exactly in his place, and had glanced up to see the stranger in the road.
"Got another basket handy?" I asked.
"There is one somewhere around here," he answered not too cordially. The boy said nothing at all, but eyed me with absorbing interest. The gloomy look had already gone from his face.
I slipped my gray bag from my shoulder, took off my coat, and put them both down inside the fence. Then I found the basket and began to fill it from one of the bags. Both man and boy looked up at me questioningly. I enjoyed the situation immensely.
"I heard you say to your son," I said, "that you'd have to hurry in order to get in your potatoes to-day. I can see that for myself. Let me take a hand for a row or two."
The unmistakable shrewd look of the bargainer came suddenly into the man's face, but when I went about my business without hesitation or questioning, he said nothing at all. As for the boy, the change in his countenance was marvellous to see.
Something new and astonishing had come into the world. Oh, I know what a thing it is to be a boy and to work in trouting time!
"How near are you planting, Ben?" I asked.
"About fourteen inches."
So we began in fine spirits. I was delighted with the favourable beginning of my enterprise; there is nothing which so draws men together as their employment at a common task.
Ben was a lad some fifteen years old-very stout and stocky, with a fine open countenance and a frank blue eye--all boy. His nose was as freckled as the belly of a trout. The whole situation, including the prospect of help in finishing a tiresome job, pleased him hugely. He stole a glimpse from time to time at me then at his father. Finally he said:
"Say, you'll have to step lively to keep up with dad."
"I'll show you," I said, "how we used to drop potatoes when I was a boy."
And with that I began to step ahead more quickly and make the pieces fairly fly.
"We old fellows," I said to the father, "must give these young sprouts a lesson once in a while."
"You will, will you?" responded the boy, and instantly began to drop the potatoes at a prodigious speed. The father followed with more dignity, but with evident amusement, and so we all came with a rush to the end of the row.
"I guess that beats the record across THIS field!" remarked the lad, puffing and wiping his forehead. "Say, but you're a good one!"
It gave me a peculiar thrill of pleasure; there is nothing more pleasing than the frank admiration of a boy.
We paused a moment and I said to the man: "This looks like fine potato land."
"The' ain't any better in these parts," he replied with some pride in his voice.
