But this was what was done.Early the next morning, a man came driving into the yard, with two strong white horses; in his wagon was a plough.I suppose you have seen ploughs, but Margery never had, and she watched with great interest, while the man and her father took the plough from the cart and harnessed the horses to it.It was a great, three-cornered piece of sharp steel, with long handles coming up from it, so that a mancould hold it in place.It looked like this:--"I brought a two-horse plough because it's green land," the man said.Margery wondered what in the world he meant; it was green grass, of course, but what had that to do with the kind of plough? "What does he mean, father?" she whispered, when she got a chance."He means that this land has not been ploughed before, or not for many years; it will be hard to turn the soil, and one horse could not pull the plough," said her father.So Margery had learned what "green land" was.
The man was for two hours ploughing the little strip of land.He drove the sharp end of the plough into the soil, and held it firmly so, while the horses dragged it along in a straight line.Margery found it fascinating to see the long line of dark earth and green grass come rolling up and turn over, as the knife passed it.She could see that it took real skill and strength to keep the line even, and to avoid the stones.Sometimes the plough struck a hidden stone, and then the man was jerked almost off his feet.But he only laughed, and said, "Tough piece of land; be a lot better the second year."When he had ploughed, the man went back to his cart and unloaded another farm implement.This one was like a three-cornered platform of wood, with a long, curved, strong rake under it.It was called a harrow, and it looked like this:--The man harnessed the horses to it, and then he stood on the platform and drove all over the strip of land.It was fun to watch, but perhaps it was a little hard to do.The man's weight kept the harrow steady, and let the teeth of the rake scratch and cut the ground up, so that it did not stay in ridges.
"He scrambles the ground, father!" said Margery.
"It needs scrambling," laughed her father."We are going to get more weeds than we want on this green land, and the more the ground is broken, the fewer there will be."After the ploughing and harrowing, the man drove off, and Margery's father said he would do the rest of the work in the late afternoons, when he came home from business; they could not afford too much help, he said, and he had learned to take care of a garden when he was a boy.SoMargery did not see any more done until the next day.
But the next day there was hard work for Margery's father! Every bit of that "scrambled" turf had to be broken up still more with a mattock and a spade, and then the pieces which were full of grass-roots had to be taken on a fork and shaken, till the earth fell out; then the grass was thrown to one side.That would not have had to be done if the land had been ploughed in the fall; the grass would have rotted in the ground, and would have made fertilizer for the plants.Now, Margery's father put the fertilizer on the top, and then raked it into the earth.
At last, it was time to make the place for the seeds.Margery and her mother helped.Father tied one end of a cord to a little stake, and drove the stake in the ground at one end of the garden.Then he took the cord to the other end of the garden and pulled it tight, tied it to another stake, and drove that down.That made a straight line for him to see.Then he hoed a trench, a few inches deep, the whole length of the cord, and scattered fertilizer in it.Pretty soon the whole garden was in lines of little trenches.
"Now for the corn," said father.
Margery ran and brought the seed box, and found the package of corn.It looked like kernels of gold, when it was opened.
"May I help?" Margery asked, when she saw how pretty it was.
"If you watch me sow one row, I think you can do the next," said her father.
