I handed him a dollar in addition to his charge, saying that I had never paid out money with greater satisfaction. "Well," he said, with a short, dry laugh, "I'll take it this time, for my work is sufferin' at home, but I didn't want you to get discouraged. Now, keep the hoes flyin', and you're ahead once more. Junior's at it early and late, I can tell ye." "So I supposed, for we've missed him." "Good reason. When I'm through with him he's ready enough to crawl into his little bed." So were we for a few days, in our winning fight with the weeds. One hot afternoon, about three o'clock, I saw that Merton was growing pale, and beginning to lag, and I said, decidedly: "Do you see that tree there? Go and lie down under it till I call you." "I guess I can stand it till night," he began, his pride a little touched. "Obey orders! I am captain." In five minutes he was fast asleep. I threw my coat over him, and sat down, proposing to have a half-hour's rest myself. My wife came out with a pitcher of cool butter-milk and nodded her head approvingly at us. "Well, my thoughtful Eve," I said, "I find that our modern Eden will cost a great many back-aches." "If you will only be prudent like this, you may save me a heart-ache. Robert, you are ambitious, and unused to this kind of work. Please don't ever be so foolish as to forget the comparative value of vegetables and yourselves. Honestly now" (with one of her saucy looks), "I'd rather do with a few bushels less, than do without you and Merton;" and she sat down and kept me idle for an hour. Then Merton got up, saying that he felt as "fresh as if he had had a night's rest," and we accomplished more in the cool of the day than if we had kept doggedly at work. I found that Winnie and Bobsey required rather different treatment. For a while they got on very well, but one morning I set them at a bed of parsnips about which I was particular. In the middle of the forenoon I went to the garden to see how they were getting on. Shouts of laughter made me fear that all was not well, and I soon discovered that they were throwing lumps of earth at each other. So absorbed were they in their untimely and mischievous fun that I was not noticed until I found Bobsey sitting plump on the vegetables, and the rows behind both the children very shabbily cleaned, not a few of the little plants having been pulled up with the weeds. Without a word I marched them into the house, then said: "Under arrest till night. Winnie, you go to your room. I shall strap Bobsey in his chair, and put him in the parlor by himself."