"Then won't they bear?" asked Merry in despairing accents. "Oh yes," said Hope with determined courage. "I had a quantity of fertilizers put on. Besides, I'll send for more. It isn't too late, I'm sure.--We'll use it for top-dressing, eh, Spafford?" "I declare, Hope, I had no idea you were such a farmer," said the Invalid with a pleasant smile. "And then, besides, we don't depend upon the peas alone," continued Hope, reflecting back the smile and speaking with quite her accustomed cheerfulness: "there are the corn and the cabbages." "And the potatoes and cucumbers," added Merry as we returned slowly to the house by way of all the points of interest--the young orange trees, Merry's newly-transplanted wisteria and the pig-pen. "I rather suspect that _there_ is our most profitable crop," said the Invalid as we seated ourselves upon the piazza which the Pessimist had lately built before the house. He was looking toward a tree which grew not far distant, sheltered by two enormous oaks. Of fair size and perfect proportions, this tree was one mass of glossy, dark-green leaves, amid which innumerable golden fruit glimmered brightly in the setting sunlight. [Illustration: PICKING PEAS.] "Our one bearing tree," answered Hope. "Yes, if we only had a thousand like it we might give up farming." "We shall have them in time," said the Pessimist complacently, looking abroad upon the straight rows of tiny trees almost hidden by the growing crops. "Thanks to my perseverance--" "And Dryden's," interpolated Merry. "There are a thousand four-year-old trees planted," continued the Pessimist, not noticing the interruption. "I wonder how many oranges that tree has borne?" "I suppose we have eaten some twenty a day from it for the last three months," said Merry. "Hardly that," said the Invalid, "but say fifteen hundred. And the tree looks almost as full as ever." "What if we should have them gathered and sold?" suggested Hope--"just to see what an orange tree is really worth. Spafford says that the fruit will not be so good later. It will shrivel at last; and we never can eat all those oranges in any case." Shipping the oranges was the pleasantest work we had yet done. There was a certain fascination in handling the firm golden balls, in sorting and arranging, in papering and packing; and there was real delight in despatching the first shipment from the farm--the more, perhaps, as the prospect of other shipments began to dwindle. The peas, in spite of the top-dressing, looked yellow and sickly. The cucumbers would not run, and more blossoms fell off than seemed desirable. The Pessimist left off laughing at the idea of farming, and spent a great deal of time walking about the place, looking into things in general. "Isn't it almost time for those cabbages to begin to head?" he asked one day on returning from a tour of inspection. "Dryden says," observed Merry, "that those are not cabbages at all: they are collards."