Again I started for the orchard. Already the buds were swelling on the old trees, and the haze of nascent foliage hung over them. I had four and a half rows to trim, and then the whole orchard to go over with paint pot and gouge and cement. I had never trimmed a tree in my life till the day before, yet I felt that I was doing a better job than Bert had done on his trees, for Bert's idea of pruning was to cut off all the limbs he could reach near the trunk, often leaving a stub four inches long when it didn't happen to be convenient to saw closer. He made his living, and a good one, selling milk and cauliflowers--he had thirty acres down to cauliflowers, and shipped them to New York--but, like so many New England farmers, he couldn't or wouldn't understand the simple science of tree culture. Anybody can learn tree culture with a little application to the right books or models and a little imagination to see into the future. A good tree pruner has to be a bit of an architect. I thought so then in my pride, at any rate, and it turned out I was right. Right or wrong, however, I went at my job that morning with a mighty zest, and soon had a second barrier of dead wood heaped upon the ground. As I worked, I thought how this orchard must be trimmed and cleaned up first, but how the fine planting weather was upon us, too, and I ought to be getting my garden seeds in, if I was to have any flowers. I thought, also, of all my manuscripts to be read. A nervous fit seized me, and I worked frantically. "How on earth shall I ever find time for all I've got to do?" I said to myself, sending the saw into a dead limb with a vicious jab. But I soon discovered that nervous haste wasn't helping any. In my excitement, I cleaned off all the suckers on a limb, and suddenly realized that I should have left two or three of the strongest to make new wood, as the limb itself was past bearing. I thought of Mike's reflection, that he kept his thoughts on his gardening. So I calmed down, and gave my whole attention to my work, making a little study of each limb, deciding what I wished to leave for future development, and what would give the best decorative effect to my slope as well. You can really trim an old apple tree into a thing of gnarled power and quaint charm by a little care. Tap, tap, tap, came the sound of hammers from my house. The plumbers had returned, and I could hear them rattling pipes. The water company was digging for the connections. Now and then a shout from Joe to the horses was wafted down from the plateau. A pair of persistent song sparrows, building in an evergreen by the brook, kept up a steady song. A robin sang in the next tree to me. The sun beat warmly on my neck. And I sawed and pruned, keeping steadily to my job, treating each tree and limb as a separate and important problem, till I heard the hammers cease at noon. I had almost completed my first row!