With a trowel he began digging up the runners and placing them on the wheelbarrow. It delighted him to part the soft cool soil with his fingers, to thrust them sensitively among the finely filamented roots. The delicate snap, subterranean, of rootlets gave him a delicious pang. “Blood flows--but it’s all for the best; in the best of all possible worlds. Yield to me, strawberries, and you shall bear. I am the resurrection and the life.” When he had a sufficient pile of plants, he trundled the wheelbarrow to the new bed, exquisitely prepared, rich, warm, inviting. With the hoe he made a series of holes, and then, stooping, thrust the hairy roots back into the earth, pressing the soil tenderly about them. Then he rose, stretched his back, and lighted his pipe, shutting his left eye, and enshrining the flame, which danced, in the hollow of his stained hands. The cloud of smoke went up like incense. “Water!” he cried. “Water! Water!” Martha appeared, after a moment, bringing the watering-pot. She held it in front of her with both hands. “Quick, Martha, before they die. Their tongues are turning black.” “Silly!” Martha replied. The earth about each plant was darkened with the tilted water, and the soiled leaves and stems were brightened. “Listen, daddy! They’re smacking their lips.” “They are pale, they have their eyes shut, they are reaching desperately down into the darkness for something to hold on to. They grope and tickle at atoms of soil, they shrink away from pebbles, they sigh and relax.” “When the dew falls, they’ll sing.” “Ha! ha! what fools we are.” He flung the hoe across the wheelbarrow and started wheeling it towards the toolhouse. “Bring the watering-pot.” Martha ran after him and put it in the wheelbarrow. “That’s right--add to my burden--never do anything that you can make somebody else do.” Martha giggled in response and skipped towards the house. When she reached the stone steps she put her feet close together and with dark seriousness hopped up step after step in that manner. He watched her and smiled. “O Lord, Lord,” he said, “what a circus we are.”