"Mr. Butterwick," said Hoops, "I've got some bad news to break to you,
but I hope you'll stand it like a man. These afflictions come to all
of us in this life, sir. They are meant for our good. But really, sir,
those are not Borneo cabbages. Cabbages! Why, thunder and lightnin'!
They are merely a mixture of California and Mexican pokeberry with
the ordinary kind, and a little Osage orange sprinkled through. It's
awful, sir! Why, you've got about two acres of pokeberry and not a
blessed bit of cabbage or turnips among them."

"Mr. Hoops, this is terrible news; and do you know I gave a lot of
those seeds to Potts and Coffin?"

"I know you did; and I seen Colonel Coffin this mornin' with a
shot-gun goin' round askin' people if they knew where he could find
you."

"Find me! What do you mean?"

"Well, you see, sir, that there onion seed that you gave him was
really the seed of the silver maple tree, and it's growed up so thick
all over his garden that a cat can't crawl through it. There's about
forty million shoots and suckers in that garden, and they'll have to
be cut out with a handsaw. It'll take about a year to do it."

"You appall me, Hoops!"

"And that's not the worst of it. The roots are so matted and
interlocked jes beneath the surface that you can't make any impression
on 'em with a pickaxe. That garden of Coffin's is ruined--entirely