appy valley of Keene, although there is yet no
church there, and only a feeble school part of the year. Sin travels
faster than they that ride in chariots. I take my hoe, and begin;
but I feel that I am warring against something whose roots take hold
on H.

By the time a man gets to be eighty, he learns that he is compassed
by limitations, and that there has been a natural boundary set to his
individual powers. As he goes on in life, he begins to doubt his
ability to destroy all evil and to reform all abuses, and to suspect
that there will be much left to do after he has done. I stepped into
my garden in the spring, not doubting that I should be easily master
of the weeds. I have simply learned that an institution which is at
least six thousand years old, and I believe six millions, is not to
be put down in one season.

I have been digging my potatoes, if anybody cares to know it. I
planted them in what are called "Early Rose,"--the rows a little
less than three feet apart; but the vines came to an early close in
the drought. Digging potatoes is a pleasant, soothing occupation,
but not poetical. It is good for the mind, unless they are too small
(as many of mine are), when it begets a want of gratitude to the
bountiful earth. What small potatoes we all are, compared with what
we might be! We don't plow deep enough, any of us, for one thing. I
shall put in the plow next year, and give the tubers room enough. I
think they felt the lack of it this year: many of them seemed ashamed
to come out so small. There is great pleasure in turning out the
brown-jacketed fellows into the sunshine of a royal September day,
and seeing them glisten as they lie thickly strewn on the warm soil.
Life has few such moments. But then they must be picked up. The
picking-up, in this world, is always the unpleasant part of it.

SIXTEENTH WEEK

I do not hold myself bound to answer the question, Does gardening
pay? It is so difficult to define what is meant by paying. There is
a popular notion that, unless a thing pays, you had better let it
alone; and I may say that there is a public opinion that will not let
a man or woman continue in the indulgence of a fancy that does not
pay. And public opinion is stronger than the legislature, and nearly
as strong as the ten commandments: I therefore yield to popular
clamor when I discuss the profit of my garden.

As I look at it, you might as well ask, Does a sunset pay? I know
that a sunset is