"Oh, I don't know. First, they are too neat and green, and then they are all covered with potato-bug powder, and then they wither up and lie all around, and then they are dug, and the field is a sight! Now, rye and corn! They're lovely from beginning to end." Jonathan ruminated. "I seem to see myself expressing these ideas to Hiram," he remarked dryly. "I suppose it all comes down to the simple question, What is the farm for?" I said. "I am afraid that is what Hiram would think," said Jonathan. "Never mind about Hiram," I said severely. "Now really, away down deep, haven't you yourself a sneaking desire for--oh, for crops, and for having things look shipshape, as you call it? Now, haven't you?" "I wonder," said Jonathan, as though we were talking about a third person. "I don't wonder; I know. The trouble with men," I went on, "is that when they want to make a thing look well, all they can think of is cutting and chopping. Look at a man when he goes to a party, or to have his picture taken! He always dashes to the barber's first--that is, unless there's a woman around to interfere. Do you remember Jack Mason when he was married? Face and neck the color of raw beef from sunburn, and hair cropped so close it made his head look like a drab egg!" "I didn't notice," said Jonathan. "No, I suppose not. You would have done the same thing--you're all alike. Look at horses! When men want to make a horse look stylish, why, chop off his tail, of course! And they are only beginning to learn better. When a man builds a house, what does he do? Cuts down every tree, every bush and twig, and makes it 'shipshape,' as you call it. And then the women have to come along and plant everything all over again." "But things need cutting now and then," said Jonathan. "You wouldn't like it, you know, if a man never went to the barber's. He'd look like a woodchuck." "There are worse-looking things than woodchucks. Still, of course, there's a medium. Possibly the woodchuck carries neglect to excess." The discussion rested there. I do not know whether Jonathan expressed any of these ideas to Hiram, but the grooming process appeared to be temporarily suspended. Then one day my turn came. It was dusk, and I was sitting on an old log at the back of the orchard, looking out over the little swamp, all a-twinkle with fireflies. Jonathan had been up the lane, prowling about, as he often does at nightfall, "to take a look at the farm." I heard his step in the lane, and he jumped over the bars at the far end of the orchard. There was a pause, then a vehement exclamation--too vehement to print. Jonathan's remarks do not usually need editing, and I listened to these in the dusk in some degree of wonder, if not of positive enjoyment. Finally I called out, "What's the matter?" "Oh! You there?" He strode over. "Matter! Come and see what that fool hobo did." "You called him something besides that a moment ago," I remarked.