'Tis true, he was perfectly capable
of executing her agricultural plans when she proposed them, but his own
capacity for making a lucky hit was very limited. Of the two, she was
certainly the better farmer; and scarcely an improvement took place in
his little holding which might not be traced to Ellish.
In the course of a couple of years she bought him a horse, and Peter was
enabled, to join with a neighbor, who had another. Each had a plough
and tackle, so that here was a little team made up, the half of which
belonged to Peter. By this means they ploughed week about, until their
crops were got down. Peter finding his farm doing well, began to feel a
kind of rivalship with his wife--that is to say, she first suggested
the principle, and afterwards contrived to make him imagine that it was
originally his own.
"The sarra one o' you, Pettier," she exclaimed to him one day, "but's
batin' me out an' out. Why, you're the very dickins at the farmin', so
you are. Faix, I suppose, if you go an this way much longer, that
you'll be thinkin' of another farm, in regard that we have some guineas
together. Pettier, did you ever think of it, abouchal?"
"To be sure, I did, you beauty; an' amn't I in fifty notions to take
Harry Neal's land, that jist lies alongside of our own.
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