"I believe it would be better for us both to crop it on shares, as you
are going to put in foodstuffs, too. I am cropping on onions with old
Charlie Wade, down the road, and with sugar-beets with Hen Bates. In
this case it would be about fair for you to furnish the seeds and I the
land, all labor that each of us puts in to be charged against the gross
receipts. I'll just enter you in my time-book now. Let's see--it is
one-fifteen," and as he spoke Sam took out, first his watch, and then a
muddy little book that had time-tables and all sorts of almanac things
in it.

For a second I was as mad as I was when he handed me the two-inch fish
and ordered me to take it in for the cook to have for my supper; but in
a second I saw just what he had done to me and I didn't dare
remonstrate.

"How much do I get an hour?" I asked, with the greatest dignity, as I
threw the seed-basket and my hat on the ground and picked up my rusty
old hoe, ready for business.

"I charge myself at twelve and a half cents. Are you worth about--about
fifteen?" he asked in a business-like tone of voice, but I saw a twitch
at the corners of his mouth that made me boil with rage.

"Put me down at six and a quarter for the present," I answered,
haughtily.

"Down she goes," he answered, as he thus minimized me with his pencil
and put the book back in his pocket. "Now, where do you want me to heave
in the lilacs so as to get the two corners of the garden to guide the
rows by? Shall they run north and south or east and west? It really