“That is one of the things our life here is intended to show, dearie, that no one is too grand for any honest work that he or she is physically capable of performing.” CHAPTER V. CORN PLANTING. Punctual to the minute, there was Madame with her bag of corn on her left arm, following Brother Huntley and his plough-horses to the field, in the damp white fog of sunrise. Balthasar in deep disgust was there too, as in duty bound, but he had not a wag for anybody. How could a rational dog be in good spirits at that hour of the morning! Madame was dressed in a short calico frock well up to her ankles. Her fair hair was loosely wisped at the back of her head, and a large straw hat, tied down with a green gauze veil, made her look at once comfortable in the fog and ready for the expected sunshine. There were no corn-planters at Perfection City: farm-machinery was not then so plentiful on the prairie as now, and money was if possible scarcer. Corn planting was, therefore, done by hand. Brother Dummy’s drills of longitude were already ploughed, and he began on the drills of latitude forthwith. Into the hollows made by the intersection of these two sets of drills Madame was to drop three grains of corn, neither more nor less. It is dizzying work. After walking up and down the drills for hours one becomes oppressed by the never-ceasing square constantly recurring every two steps. The check pattern bewilders you, and you begin to wonder how a chess-man would feel if, endowed with sensibility and the power of motion, he had to march up and down his chess-board, always keeping to the lines for hours at a stretch. About seven o’clock Mary Winkle came upon the scene and plodded and planted for four hours. The sun was blazing down upon them pitilessly, and the parching south wind blew the fine black dust up from the rich dry soil, until their eyes and ears and noses were full of it.