' Cow and did not mind chasing
her up and down the road and through the bushes, though sometimes during
the summer, when he had had a hard day with her, and our windows were
open, we could hear him still hi-hi-ing and whooping in his sleep,
chasing Mis' Cow through the woods of dream.

IV

_Strawberries and trout. How is that for a combination?_

[Illustration: _I remember that as a golden summer, an enthusiastic
summer, and, on the whole, a successful one_]

I remember that as a golden summer, an enthusiastic summer, and, on the
whole, a successful one. Our early garden grew--also the second
planting and the third. William Deegan made it his business to see that
they did. I realized presently that my special forte lay in directing a
sizable garden like that rather than in performing the actual labor,
especially when June arrived and the sun began to approach the
perpendicular and take on callithump. You probably don't know what
callithump is, but you will find out if you undertake to hoe sod-ground
potatoes in July. It has something to do with brazen trumpets and
violence.

I became acquainted with callithump when I straightened out the
asparagus-bed. The weeds had got a master start there, and the feeble
feathery asparagus shoots were quite overtopped and lost. I said the job
required a microscopic eye and a delicate hand. I would set the
asparagus-bed in order myself.

It is surprising how much ground a hundred asparagus roots can cover.
Elizabeth had superintended their planting, during a period when I had
been absent, and, remembering my mania for having things far apart, she
had let herself go in the matter of space. She had made it rich, too,
and the weeds just loved it. Some of them were up to my waist. I said
they would have to be pulled by hand and I would get up in the cool of
the morning and do it.

It is almost impossible to beat the sun up in June. I was out there at
five o'clock, but the sun was already busy and had got the range. By the
time I had pulled half-way down one row I could feel the callithump
working. Also something else. We claimed to have no mosquitoes in Brook
Ridge, so it could not have been those. Whatever it was kept me swearing
steadily, and pawing and slapping and sweating blood. When I had
finished a row I crept in, got some fresh clothes and a towel, and made
a dash for the brook. I had cleaned out a special pool behind the
ice-house, and built a little dressing-platform.