garden of flowers whose gorgeous bloom found ready sale; then the
poultry yard, pig-sties, bee-hives and stables, Margaret all the while
discoursing upon remedies for this or that drawback, and how to manage
the diverse brands and breeds, till her dainty friend held up her hands
in honest wonder.

"How on earth and where did you learn all this?" she found voice to ask.

"From the journals, I read about farming and gardening, about
housekeeping, and raising all those barn-yard creatures. We are thinking
of adding a small family of canaries to our stock; they are much sought
after and readily sell. Oh, I could not get on at all without my papers.
They are everything to me. Why, just listen to what I know about corn,"
she went on, with a proud light in her handsome eyes. "Kentucky was
once a leading state in raising corn, and she will be again," and here
followed facts and statistics singularly incongruous from rosy lips to
the listening ears of the city girl. "There is nothing, Amelia, that
pays like doing a thing well. For instance, our own Kentucky is not
famous for well-kept farms, but I could not afford to have my fences
down, my fields choked with weeds, and my stock depredating elsewhere."

"But how do you manage your servants? They are the great bugbear
nowadays."

"By making them respect me and by paying good wages. They should not
be expected to give their time and strength at starvation prices.
I do have trouble sometimes. In fact I think, first and last, I have
done everything but plow. But in the main I get along. The farm is
prospering, and a few years hence I mean to have it called a model,
not a mortgaged farm."