In the course of two dashes I discovered that the spectacle of a bald-headed front-yard farmer trotting up and down behind a lawn mower was a thing to make acquaintance with. Two men I'd never seen in my life stopped and gazed at me, and one of them asked me if I was mowing my lawn. A little girl came by and stood cross-legged with her finger in her mouth, and, when I looked her way, snickered and ran home to tell her mother what a strange sight she had seen. Our grocer lingered to remark that it was a hot afternoon, and as if in confirmation of his remarkable perspicuity a lake of sweat fell like a cloudburst from my brow and drowned a hill of ants. "Don't work so hard," said my wife, as I made another turn. "Why don't you take it easy?" "I am taking it easy," I replied. "All I need now is a leather chair and a highball to look like the Maryland Club in repose!" Sarcasm is one of my strong points, and my wife realized that she had goaded me into sharp retort, so she giggled at me and ran to the telephone to tell her mother that Henry was perfectly crazy about his new lawn mower and couldn't leave it alone for a minute. With all those people looking on and my lawn mower hitting a rock or a hole every seven revolutions, I felt cheap. I felt as though it might have been myself whose jawbone was broken by Samson, or who bore Balaam to Jerusalem. The crowd kept growing, and a stream of honest toil rolled down my spine. Somehow or other I finished the job. Then I looked at the crowd. I left the lawn mower and walked over to them with a deadly glare in my eye. "Any of you fellows want to fight?" I demanded rudely. Nobody replied. "Because if you do," I said, "I can tie both hands behind me and lick any six of you right now." The crowd melted away slowly. One man did stay a moment, but he didn't want to fight. He offered to feel my pulse. In spite of his sarcasm, and in the face of all criticism, I insist that I was beginning to learn. For instance, shall I tell you of the time I astonished Campbell? Campbell was raised in the country. The smell of sod is strong in his nostrils, and he is a handy man with a hoe. Campbell is an agent for the Duke, but time hangs on his hands at moments and he dropped around in a casual sort of way to look at our back yard. "I'm thinking of planting a turnip and some onions," said my wife pleasantly. Campbell smiled. "In that soil," he said, "you'll never make them completely happy. They'll be crying for home all the time." "What's the matter with the soil?" demanded my wife. "Well, it wasn't built for farming. You always have to put in richer soil. I'll show you." My wife thinks Campbell is just about right. When he began to talk about how he'd enjoy fixing her garden, and would she please let him have the hoe, rake, spade, and a bucket to tote sod from a pile in the front yard, she began to look upon him as a Dispensation of Providence. Agriculturally, I dwindled in importance as he expanded.