Our first season's profits did not make us rich, as the whole income was only a hundred and sixty dollars. But it showed conclusively that we were able to accomplish something handsome in an entirely new field. The cost of plants and of preparing the ground was a little rising thirty dollars. All that remained over these two items was so much in payment of our own labor, and for this we had never before had a market, as it was the contribution of odd times, except an occasional half-day lost from the factory; but as our earnings there were small, this loss was not of much account. Here, then, was more than a hundred dollars made out of almost nothing. This was equal to the wages of both Jane and myself for a quarter of the year. If a half-acre of strawberries, not yet in full bearing, could do this, it was clear that a whole acre of well-established plants would go very far toward enabling us to abandon our factory-life entirely. This was what we were aiming at: we were willing to work, but preferred working at home. Of course it was simply a question of how much we could make on an acre. My mother was sure there could be no doubt about the matter, if she could be allowed to open a strawberry-garden. She seemed to have given up her long-cherished preference for the needle, and now began to realize that there might be something better. Not one of us, however, would hear to the garden, though we now clearly understood how extremely profitable must be that mode of bringing the producer and the consumer together. Practice in any art is a wonderful enlightener of the understanding. It thus became quite clear to us that the Tetchy family were living handsomely on the strawberries raised on one acre of land, and cream manufactured principally at the kitchen pump. As usual on such occasions, Fred undertook to prove by his figures how much it was they were earning. I think he made it out about a thousand dollars a year; but as his previous calculations touching our own crop had proved rather deceptive, I did not trust implicitly to his conclusions. But he insisted that it must be so, as figures never lied. I suggested, that, though the figures themselves might not lie, yet that instances had been known of their leading to great lies by others,--not meaning, however, to refer to him.