After dinner we gave up hoeing for the day, and went to our usual afternoon occupation of picking the next morning's supply for the widow. She not only sold readily all we could gather, and at excellent prices, but even called for more. It seemed that her customers were also increasing, as well as those of our neighbors. Indeed, her urgency for more fruit was such, during the entire season, that the question repeatedly crossed my mind, whether we could not appropriate more ground to strawberries by getting rid of some of the flowers. They were beautiful things, but then they paid no profit. When one strikes a vein that happens to be profitable, he is apt to become impatient of doing well in a small way, and forthwith casts about for ways and means to increase its productiveness, as he thinks, by enlarging his operations. It was natural for me to conclude, that, if I were thus fortunate on one acre, I could do much better by cultivating more. I presume this hankering after additional acres must be a national weakness, as there were numerous disquisitions on the subject scattered through my agricultural papers, in many of which I noticed that there was great fault-finding because men in this country undertook the cultivation of twice as much land as they could properly manage. The propensity for going on and enlarging their possessions seemed a very general one. Thus even I, in my small way, was insensibly becoming a disciple of these deluded people. But there was this comfort in my case, that, while others were able to enlarge, even to their ruin, there was a limit to my expansion, as it was impossible for me to go beyond an acre and a half. That afternoon we had just got well under way at picking, when a man came into the garden with a bundle of hoes and rakes on his shoulder, and coming up to us, took off his hat and bowed with the utmost deference, then drew from his pocket a letter, which, singularly enough, he handed to me, instead of giving it either to my mother or Jane. On opening it, I found it to be a note from Mr. Logan, in which he said he had noticed that our garden-tools were so heavy as to be entirely unfit for ladies' use, and he had therefore taken the liberty of sending me a variety of others that were made expressly for female gardeners, asking me to do him the great favor to accept them. Both my mother and Jane had stopped picking, as this unexpected donation was laid before us, so I read the note aloud to them, the messenger having previously taken his leave. I think, altogether, it was the greatest surprise we had ever had. "The next thing, I suppose," said Jane, "you'll have him down here to show you how to use them"; and she laughed so heartily as quite to mortify me. I understood her meaning, but my mother did not appear to comprehend it, for she replied, with the utmost gravity,-- "No need of his coming to teach us; haven't we been hoeing all our lives?"