Indeed
Arthur would come into my room and talk about compost after I had gone
to bed.
Father's farming man was always much more good-natured to us than John
ever was. He would give us anything we wanted. Warm milk when the cows
were milked, or sweet-pea sticks, or bran to stuff the dolls' pillows.
I've known him take his hedging-bill, in his dinner-hour, and cut fuel
for our beacon-fire, when we were playing at a French Invasion.
Nothing could be kinder.
Perhaps we do not tease him so much as we tease John. But when I say
that, Arthur says, "Now, Mary, that's just how you explain away
things. The real difference between John and Michael is, that Michael
is good-natured and John is not. Catch John showing me the duck's nest
by the pond, or letting you into the cow-house to kiss the new calf
between the eyes--if he were farm man instead of gardener!"
And the night Arthur sat in my room, talking about compost, he said,
"I shall get some good stuff out of Michael, I know; and Harry and I
see our way to road-scrapings if we can't get sand; and we mean to
take precious good care John doesn't have all the old leaves to
himself. It's the top-spit that puzzles us, and loam is the most
important thing of all."
"What is top-spit?" I asked.
"It's the earth you get when you dig up squares of grass out of a
field like the paddock.
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