tle boy, to your row," she admonished him. "Can't you
see that I'm busy?"

Elliott hoed briskly, if a bit awkwardly, and painstakingly removed
every weed. The freshly stirred earth looked dark and pleasant; the
odor of it was good, too. She compared what she had done with what she
hadn't, and the contrast moved her to new activity. But after a
time--it was not such a long time, either, though it seemed hours--she
thought it would be pleasant to stop. The motion of the hoe was
monotonous. She straightened up and leaned on the handle and surveyed
her fellow-workers. Their backs looked very industrious as they bent
at varying distances across the garden. Even Stannard had left her
behind.

Gertrude abandoned her row and came and inspected Elliott's. "That
looks fine," she said, "for a beginner. You must stop and rest
whenever you're tired. Mother always tells us to begin a thing easy,
not to tire ourselves too much at first. She won't let us girls work
when the sun's too hot, either."

Elliott forced a smile. If she had done what she wished to, she would
have thrown down her hoe and walked off the field. But for the first
time in her life she didn't feel quite like letting herself do what
she wished to.

What would these new cousins think of her if she abandoned a task
as abruptly as that? But what good did her hoeing do?--a few
scratches on the border of this big garden-patch. It couldn't
matter to the Belgians or the Germans or Hoover or anybody else
whether she hoed or didn't hoe. Perhaps, if every one said that,
even of garden-patches--but not every one would say it. Some people
knew how to hoe. Presumably some people liked hoeing. Goodness, how
long this row was! Would she ever, _ever_ reach the end?

Priscilla bobbed up, a moist, flushed Priscilla. "That looks nice. You
haven't got very far yet, have you? Never mind. Things go a lot faster
after you've done 'em a while. Why, when I first tried to play the
piano, my fingers went so slow, they just made me ache. Now they skip
along real quick."

Elliott leaned on her hoe. "Do you play the piano?"

"Oh, yes! Mother taught me. Good-by. I must get back to my row."

"Do you like hoeing?" Elliott called after her.

"I like to get it done." The small figure skipped nimbly away.

"'Get it done!'" Elliott addressed the next clump of waving green
blades, pessimism in her voice. "After one row, isn't there another,
and another, and _another_, forever?" She slashed i