removed by hand before we plant. We offered him twenty cents an hour to
do it.

The most tragic odor in the world hangs over Marathon these days; the
smell of freshly spaded earth. It is extolled by the poets and all
those happy sons of the pavement who know nothing about it. But here are
we, who hardly know a loam from a lentil, breaking our back over seed
catalogues. Public opinion may compel us to raise vegetables, but we are
going to go about it our own way. If the stones are going to act like
werewolves and suck the moisture from our soil, let them do so. We don't
believe in thwarting nature. Maybe it will be a very wet summer and we
shall have the laugh on Bill, who has carted away all his stones.

And we should just like to see Bill Stites write a poem. We bet it
wouldn't look as much like a poem as our beans look like beans. And as
for Hank and Fred, they wouldn't even know how to begin to plant a poem!




BULLIED BY THE BIRDS


Marathon, Pa., May 2.

I insist that the place for birds is in the air or on the bushy tops of
trees or on smooth-shaven lawns. Let them twitter and strut on the
greens of golf courses and intimidate the tired business men. Let them
peck cinders along the railroad track and keep the trains waiting. But
really they have no right to take possession of a man's house as they