Before the winter was over Michael was able to put in the bath-room and had bought a plow and a number of necessary farm implements, and secured the services of a man who lived near Old Orchard to do some early plowing and planting. He was able also to buy seeds and fertilizer, enough at least to start his experiment; and toward spring, he took advantage of a holiday, and with Sam and a carpenter went down to the farm and patched up the old house to keep out the rain.
After that a few cots, some boxes for chairs and tables, some cheap comfortables for cool nights, some dishes and cooking utensils from the ten-cent store, and the place would be ready for his alley-colony when he should dare to bring them down. A canvas cot and a wadded comfortable would be luxury to any of them. The only question was, would they be contented out of the city?
Michael had read many articles about the feasibility of taking the poor of the cities into the country, and he knew that experience had shown they were in most cases miserable to get back again. He believed in his heart that this might be different if the conditions were made right. In the first place they must have an environment full of new interest to supply the place of the city's rush, and then they must have some great object which they would be eager to attain. He felt, too, that they should be prepared beforehand for their new life.
To this end he had been for six months spending two or three hours a week with five or six young fellows Sam had tolled in. He had brought the agricultural papers to the room, and made much of the illustrations. The boys as a rule could not read, so he read to them, or rather translated into their own slang-ful English. He told them what wonders had been attained by farming in the right way. As these fellows had little notion about farming in any way, or little knowledge of farm products save as they came to them through the markets in their very worst forms, it became necessary to bring cabbages and apples, and various other fruits and vegetables for their inspection.
One night he brought three or four gnarled, little green-skinned, sour, speckled apples, poorly flavored. He called attention to them very carefully, and then because an apple was a treat, however poor it might be, he asked them to notice the flavor as they ate. Then he produced three or four magnificent specimens of apple-hood, crimson and yellow, with polished skin and delicious flavor, and set them in a row on the table beside some more of the little specked apples. They looked like a sunset beside a ditch. The young men drew around the beautiful apples admiringly, feeling of their shiny streaks as if they half thought them painted, and listening to the story of their development from the little sour ugly specimens they had just been eating. When it came to the cutting up of the perfect apples every man of them took an intelligent pleasure in the delicious fruit.