1884.] THE TWO MRS. TUCKERS. 301 



when to these were added an annual baby, life became a terror and 

 a burden to the poor woman. 



But what did Amasa care? He too, worked from "sun to 

 sun." 



He farmed in the hard old fashion, with rude implements and no 

 knowledge but — 



" My father done it afore me so I'm a goin' to do it now; no use 

 talking." One by one the wailing puny children were laid away 

 in the little yard on top of a sandhill, where the old Tuckers and 

 their half-dozen infants lay already: a rough inclosure full of mul- 

 leins, burdocks, and thistles, overrun with low blackberry vines 

 and surrounded by a rail fence. It had been much handier for 

 the Tuckers to have a grave-yard close by than to travel five miles 

 to the Mills with every funeral: and they were not driven by pub- 

 lic opinion in regard to monuments; they all lay there like the 

 beasts that perish, with but one scant grey stone to tell where the 

 first occupant left his tired bones. Two children of Wealthy's sur- 

 vived, Amasa and Lurana, the oldest and youngest of seven. 



Amasa, ^ considerate, intelligent boy, who thought much and 

 said little, and Lurana or " Lury " as her name was generally 

 given, a mischievous, self-willed little imp, the delight and torment 

 of her worn-out mother. Young Amasa was a boy quite beyond 

 his father's understanding; as soon as he was old enough he began 

 to help his mother in every way he could devise. And when his 

 term at the village school was over, to his father's great disgust, 

 he trapped squirrels and gathered nuts enough to earn his own 

 money and subscribe for an agricultural paper, which he studied 

 every week till its contents were thoroughly stored in his head. 

 Then began that "noble discontent" which the philosophers 

 praise. 



The elder man had no peace in his old-world ways; the sloppy 

 waste of the barn-yard was an eye-sore to this "book-learned fel- 

 ler," as his father derisively called him. And the ashes of the 

 wood-fire were saved and sheltered like precious dust, instead of 

 thrown into a big heap to edify the wandering hens. The deso- 

 late garden was plowed, fertilized and set in order at last, and the 

 great ragged orchard manured, the apple trees thinned and 

 trimmed, and ashes sown thick over the old mossy sod. Now 

 these things were not done in a day or a year, but as the boy grew 

 older and more able to cope with his father's self-conceit more was 



