CHAPTER II.
Our First Harvest If there is anything worse than burr-cutting or breaking stones, it's putting corn in with a hoe.
We had just finished.

The girls were sowing the last of the grain when Fred Dwyer appeared on the scene.

Dad stopped and talked with him while we (Dan, Dave and myself) sat on our hoe-handles, like kangaroos on their tails, and killed flies.

Terrible were the flies, particularly when you had sore legs or the blight.
Dwyer was a big man with long, brown arms and red, bushy whiskers.
"You must find it slow work with a hoe ?" he said.
"Well-yes-pretty," replied Dad (just as if he was n't quite sure).
After a while Dwyer walked over the "cultivation", and looked at it hard, then scraped a hole with the heel of his boot, spat, and said he did n't think the corn would ever come up.

Dan slid off his perch at this, and Dave let the flies eat his leg nearly off without seeming to feel it; but Dad argued it out.
"Orright, orright," said Dwyer; "I hope it do." Then Dad went on to speak of places he knew of where they preferred hoes to a plough for putting corn in with; but Dwyer only laughed and shook his head.
"D--n him!" Dad muttered, when he had gone; "what rot! WON'T COME UP!" Dan, who was still thinking hard, at last straightened himself up and said HE did n't think it was any use either.