"but _her_; he won't come to teach _us_,--one will be enough. As to the
_need_ of his coming, it looks to me to be growing stronger and
stronger."

She fairly screamed with laughter, as she said this. I was so provoked
at her, that I was almost ready to cry; and as to answering her as she
deserved, it seemed beyond my power. My mother could not understand what
she meant; but while Jane was going on in this foolish way, she had
untied the bundle and was examining the tools. There were three hoes,
and as many rakes. Observing this, Jane again cried out,--

"What! all for _you_? Well, Lizzie, you are making a nice beginning! I
suppose you will now have more conversational topics than ever, though
there seemed to be plenty of them this morning!"

One would think that this was quite enough, but she went on with,--

"Don't you wish the weeds would last all summer? for what is to become
of you when they are gone?"

Still I made no reply, and Jane persisted in her jokes and laughter. But
I think one can always tell when one is blushing. So I held down my head
and concealed my face in my sun-bonnet, as I felt the blood rushing up
into my cheeks, and was determined that she should not have the
satisfaction of discovering it.

These garden-tools were the most beautiful I had ever seen, and there
was evidently a hoe and a rake for each of us. They were made of
polished steel, with slender handles, all rubbed so smooth as to make it
a pleasure to take hold of them. The blades had been sharpened beyond
anything that Fred had been able to achieve. Being semicircular in
shape, they had points at the corners, adapted to reaching into
out-of-the-way places,--as after a weed that had grown up in the middle
of a strawberry-row, thinking, perhaps, that a shelter of that kind
would preserve it from destruction. Then they were so light that even a
child could ply them all day without their weight occasioning the least
fatigue. The rakes were equally complete, with long and sharp teeth,
which entered the ground with far greater facility than the old-time
implements we had been using. Indeed, they were the very tools we had
been promising ourselves out of the profits of our second year. My
mother was especially pleased with them, as she was not of very robust
constitution, and found the old heavy tools a great drag upon her
strength. I think no small present I have ever received was so
acceptable as this.

Whoever first manufactured a