HAPPY HOLLOW FARM 199 



telephone that they want some cucumbers 

 he's just to pick out a couple of nice ones 

 and then they're stolidly content with what 

 they get. One of the two will be a big, bloated 

 thing, turning yellow on one side and as tough 

 and tasteless as a piece of blotting paper, and 

 the other a grass-green little affair with one 

 end shrunken and twisted over like the neck of 

 a gourd. And those are cucumbers ! It serves 

 a body right for expecting to get cucumbers 

 out of a grocery store. 



There's only one place to get a real cucum- 

 ber, and that's right fresh from a real cucum- 

 ber vine in a real garden. Not any old cu- 

 cumber vine will do ; it must be a real one. The 

 hill it grows in must have been built up to the 

 very pink of perfection in soil ; the seed that's 

 planted in the hill must come from the cucum- 

 ber aristocracy; and from the day it thrusts its 

 first tender leaves out of the ground the plant 

 must have the most unremitting care. It must 

 be nursed, and watered, and forced to its quick- 

 est growth, and then be nipped back so that 

 its whole succulence and vigor will go into a 

 chosen small number of fruits. When those 

 fruits are ready they'll be good to look at 

 straight and plump and just of a certain inde- 



