If each one of my
potatoes shall only assuage the hunger of some little one, and cause
the mother's eyes to distil tears of joy, I shall be in the
border-land of happiness, to say the least. I had fully intended to
exercise my inalienable rights and lie in the shade for two hours
to-day, but when I caught a glimpse of that little chap in the high
chair, and heard his pitiful plea for potatoes, I made for the
potato-patch post-haste, as if I were responding to a hurry call. I
suppose there is no more heart-breaking sound in nature than the
crying of a hungry child. I have been whistling all the afternoon
along with my hoeing, and now that I think of it, I must be whistling
because my potatoes are going to make that baby laugh.
Well, if they do, then I shall elevate the hoeing of potatoes to the
rank of a privilege. Oh, I've read my "Tom Sawyer," and know about
his enterprise in getting the fence whitewashed by making the task
seem a privilege. But Tom was indulging in fiction, and hoeing
potatoes is no fiction. Still those whitewash artists had something
of the feeling that I experience right now, only there was no baby in
their picture as there is in mine, and so I have the baby as an
additional privilege.
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