388 CHILDREN'S BOOK FOR SABBA TI HOURS.

Now, if you conclude to keep me still in business. I want you to have all those
your employment, I shall only be too bushes, the currants and raspberries,
thankful to do all I can for master's lady etc., taken and set out in a new place,
and the children." regular, and have the land cleared up.
 "Keep you still in my employment, That kind of fruit will sell well, you
 Matthew," said the widow, "why, I could know, not that I should advise you to
 not get along without you, to say nothing turn 'the place' into a 'truck farm,'
 of Elsie and your children. You come madam."
 in to see me to-morrow morning, and we "What do you mean by a 'truck
 will talk over this matter." farm,' Matthew ? said Mrs. Vernon.
 So the next morning Matthew appeared Why, madam, down in Jersey they
 in good season, and brought with him a call all the farms that are used for raising
 little map of the place," which he had small fruits, 'truck farms.' I don't know
 roughly sketched. With due deference what they mean, unless it is that the
 he laid open the plans he had thought of. fruit is picked in little splint boxes and
 "We shall have to cut down some baskets, and run off to the station on
 trees, madam, and weed out some bush- light trucks. Such things might work
 es; but you will learn to like it in the in well in our plan, and help some; but
 end. The children will take great pleas- what I think is, we had better pay our
 ure in seeing the cabbages and onions attention to what the Yankees call 'gar-
 grow. You see it is now February, and den sarce'; and if you think my plan
 the ground is getting all ready for us, worth carrying out, I'll mark out on my
 under the snow, and if we make our map just where the beds had better be
 plans, and get the work laid out, and buy located ; then we can change crops every
 the tools and the seeds, we can begin in year, for continuing the same crop ex-
 good season." hausts the soil. Then we should have
 So Matthew laid his map on the table, to fix frames with glass for the melons
and with a pencil pointed out to his mis- and cucumbers, and make a hot-bed for
tress how he thought the best way to starting transplantable vegetables; and
have the work done, what trees should then others more hardy we can put in as
be cut down, and what shrubs and bushes soon as the ground is ready to receive
" weeded out," as he called it. the seed."
 "We shan't spoil the place, ma'am; "Yes, Matthew, you have good cour-
that would never do, with master look- age in forming plans. It will be a good
ing down upon us. We'll keep the deal of work, and will take considerable
pretty lawn and door yard bright with money to start with; but it strikes me
shrubs and flowers, and prune and graft very favorably after all."
the fruit trees, when the sap begins to "Yes, madam, a good deal of work,
run; and that will be a help in the and a good deal of money the first year,