wisteria and the pig-pen.

"I rather suspect that _there_ is our most profitable crop," said the
Invalid as we seated ourselves upon the piazza which the Pessimist had
lately built before the house. He was looking toward a tree which grew
not far distant, sheltered by two enormous oaks. Of fair size and
perfect proportions, this tree was one mass of glossy, dark-green
leaves, amid which innumerable golden fruit glimmered brightly in the
setting sunlight.

[Illustration: PICKING PEAS.]

"Our one bearing tree," answered Hope. "Yes, if we only had a thousand
like it we might give up farming."

"We shall have them in time," said the Pessimist complacently, looking
abroad upon the straight rows of tiny trees almost hidden by the growing
crops. "Thanks to my perseverance--"

"And Dryden's," interpolated Merry.

"There are a thousand four-year-old trees planted," continued the
Pessimist, not noticing the interruption. "I wonder how many oranges
that tree has borne?"

"I suppose we have eaten some twenty a day from it for the last three
months," said Merry.

"Hardly that," said the Invalid, "but say fifteen hundred. And the tree
looks almost as full as ever."

"What if we should have them gathered and sold?" suggested Hope--"just
to see what an orange tree is really worth. Spafford says that the fruit
will not be so good later. It will shrivel at last; and we never can eat
all those oranges in any case."

Shipping the oranges was the pleasantest work we had yet done. There was
a certain fascination in handling the firm golden balls, in sorting and
arranging, in papering and packing; and there was real delight in
despatching the first shipment from the farm--the more, perhaps, as the
prospect of other shipments began to dwindle. The peas, in spite of the
top-dressing, looked yellow and sickly. The cucumbers would not run, and
more blossoms fell off than seemed desirable. The Pessimist left off
laughing at the idea of farming, and spent a great deal of time walking
about the place, looking into things in general.

"Isn't it almost time for those cabbages to begin to head?" he asked one
day on returning from a tour of inspection.

"Dryden says," observed Merry, "that those are not cabbages at all: they
are collards."

"What, under the sun, are collards?" asked the Invalid.

"They are a coarse sort of cabbage: the colored people like them, but
they never head and they won't sell," said Hope, looking up from a
tre