He planted wild yam under her windows that its queer rattles might amuse
her, and hop trees where their castanets would play gay music with every
passing wind of fall. He started a thicket along the opposite bank of
Singing Water where it bubbled past her window, and in it he placed in
graduated rows every shrub and small tree bearing bright flower, berry,
or fruit. Those remaining he used as a border for the driveway from the
lake, so that from earliest spring her eyes would fall on a procession
of colour beginning with catkins and papaw lilies, and running through
alders, haws, wild crabs, dogwood, plums, and cherry intermingled with
forest saplings and vines bearing scarlet berries in fall and winter. In
the damp soil of the same character from which they were removed, in
the shade and under the skilful hand of the Harvester, few of these
knew they had been transplanted, and when May brought the catbirds and
orioles much of this growth was flowering quite as luxuriantly as the
same species in the woods.
The Harvester was in the store-house packing boxes for shipment. His
room was so small and orders so numerous that he could not keep large
quantities on hand. All crude stuff that he sent straight from the
drying-house was fresh and brightly coloured. His stock always was
marked prime A-No. 1. There was a step behind him and the Harvester
turned. A boy held out a telegram. The man opened it to find an order
for some stuff to be shipped that day to a large laboratory in Toledo.
His hands deftly tied packages and he hastily packed bottles and nailed
boxes. Then he ran to harness Betsy and load. As he drove down the hill
to the bridge he looked at his watch and shook his head.
“What are you good for at a pinch, Betsy?” he asked as he flecked the
surprised mare's flank with a switch. Belshazzar cocked his ears and
gazed at the Harvester in astonishment.
“That wasn't enough to hurt her,” explained the man. “She must speed up.
This is important business. The amount involved is not so much, but I do
love to make good. It's a part of my religion, Bel. And my religion has
so precious few parts that if I fail in the observance of any of them
it makes a big hole in my performances. Now we don't want to end a life
full of holes, so we must get there with this stuff, not because it's
worth the exertion in dollars and cents, but because these men patronize
us steadily and expect us to fill orders, even by telegraph. Hustle,
Betsy!”
The whip fell again and Belshazzar entered indignant protest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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