I would like to know where you are tonight, and what you have been doing all through this “Liberty Day.” With us the day has been cloudy and wet, and just as the sun went down Nature took the liberty of sending a cold, rain. So here I am before my big fire with a copy of Washington Irving’s “Life of Christopher Columbus.” That seems the proper way to end Columbus Day, for in trying to tell the children about him I found that I did not really know much more than they do about the great discoverer. So here I am back some 400 years in history wondering if any of these and ways of seeking for new worlds or new methods can be to modern life in New .  
My back aches, for I have been digging potatoes all day—and I thought I had graduated from that job some years ago. Perhaps you will say that we should have been out selling Liberty bonds or parading. Personally, I am a poor salesman, and we all for our bonds some days ago. There are eight bondholders in this family. The has left us without except for the children while the school is closed. There are still over 100 barrels of apples to pick, potatoes to dig, and seeding to be done, and a dozen other jobs all pressing. So I to celebrate Liberty Day by digging those Bible School potatoes. We planted a patch of potatoes between rows of young peach trees and promised the crop to the Bible Teachers’ Training School. Last year we tried this, and I put in a few of the latest scientific touches which the experts told us about. The plant lice came in a and ruined the patch. We had a few potatoes about the size of marbles. This year we avoided scientific advice, and just planted potatoes in the old-fashioned way. They were not cultivated in the best possible manner, but they made a good crop. So when Liberty Day dawned with a thick, gray mist over the land I decided to get those potatoes out instead of going on the march or singing “The Star Spangled Banner.” From what I read of Columbus I imagine he would have chosen the parade and left the digging to others. The world has taken on new ideas about labor since then.
 
So, after breakfast, Cherry-top and I took our forks and started digging. The soil was damp and the air full of mist and meanness which made me sneeze and cough as we worked on. Happily, out on our hills we are not fined $20 for sneezing outside of a handkerchief, as is the case in New York. If anyone has discovered any poetry or philosophy in the job of digging potatoes he may have the floor. I call it about the most menial job on the farm, and therefore fine discipline for “Liberty Day.” While we were working Philip and the larger boy went by with the team to seed rye. They have thrashed out enough grain by hand, and this is not only ideal weather, but about the last limit for seeding. The land was some two weeks ago, a big crop of ragweed and grass being turned under. If we only had the labor this ground would have been disked twice and then harrowed. As it is, we can only work it once with the spring-tooth. Then Philip goes ahead seeding in the rye by hand, while the boy follows with the harrow to cover the grain. It is rough seeding and would not answer for wheat, but rye is tough and enduring, and it will imitate Columbus and discover a new world in that decaying mass of ragweed. So I watch the seed sowers travel slowly along the hillside as I dig, and wonder what was doing on this farm 427 years ago, and what will be doing here 100 years hence! Such reflections were the most cheerful mental accompaniment I could find for digging potatoes. They are , while digging is the most practical thing on earth!
 
As we dug on a man and woman came up the lane. They came after apples, having engaged them before. The boy went down to attend to them, while I kept on digging. Then the boy came back with two more apple customers. The trouble with us is that we have more customers than apples this year, but these were old patrons, and they were served. The boy finally came back with $41.80 as a result of his trading, and we went at our job with new . As we dug along we noticed a curious thing about those potatoes. Here and there was a vine large and strong, and still green. The great majority of the hills were dead, but those green ones were as vigorous as they were in June. The variety was Green Mountain, and we soon found that on the average these big green vines were producing twice as much as the dead hills. Some of these living vines carried three or four big potatoes. Others had a dozen, with seven or eight of market size, while others had about 16 tubers, mostly small. Just why these vines should act in this way I do not know. There are so many possible reasons that I should have to guess at it, as Columbus did when, as his ship sailed on and on into the west, the compass began to vary. The boy and I decided that here was where we might discover a good strain of Green Mountain on Columbus Day. So we have selected 15 of the best hills. They will be planted, hill by hill, next year and still further selection made. We discarded the hills with only a few big potatoes and also those with many small ones, and selected those with a good number of medium-sized tubers. It may come to nothing, but we will try it. Experience and careful figures show that an ordinary crop of potatoes in this country does not pay. The same is true of a flock of ordinary , or a ............