fall gathering and
housing my cotton crop as usual.

Just before Christmas I promised my wife that I would be at home on
Christmas Eve in order to accompany her to our church conference. I was
on time according to my promise, helped her to get her household affairs
straight and the children settled. I had bought my wife a beautiful
cape. She took the cape, I took my overcoat and off we went. In order to
take a near route we decided to climb the fence and go through the
artichoke patch. As we had none of the children along I, helping her
over the fence, recalled our old days when we were courting. I remarked
to her:

"Gee whiz, wife, you certainly look good under that cape!"

She said, "Do you think so?"

"Yes, I have always thought that you looked good."

By this time we had gotten to the middle of the artichoke patch. I
grabbed an artichoke stalk and tried to pull it up. I made one or two
surges and it failed to come, but in bending it over I found a great
number of artichokes attached to the tap root. I asked my wife to wait a
few minutes. She asked me what I was going to do. I told her I would run
back and get the grubbing hoe and see what is under these artichokes.
She said, "Doesn't this beat the band? Stop on your way to church to go
to digging artichokes."

"All right, I will be back in a few minutes."

I came with my grubbing hoe and went to work. I dug on all sides of the
stalk, then raised it up. I believe I am safe in saying there was a half
bushel of artichokes on the roots of this stalk. I then noticed that the
dirt in the drills, the sides of the rows, and the middles were all
puffed up. One could not stick the end of his finger in the ground
without touching an artichoke. I found that the whole earth was matted
with artichokes. I really believe that had I had a full acre in and
could have gathered all the artichokes, I would have gotten at least
1,500 bushels.

I told my wife that now I could see that those people had told the truth
when they said they had gathered 900 bushels and 1,100 bushels to the
acre.

When I returned from church, I at once turned my hogs into the artichoke
patch. I then climbed up on the fence and took a seat to watch the hogs
root and crush artichokes. I looked around and saw my clover had made a
success, the little artichoke patch had turned out wonderfully. I said
to myself: "Just think of millions and millions of dollars deposited in
all these lands, both rich and