The Abandoned Farmer

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The Abandoned Farmer

by

Sydney H. Preston

Charles Scribner's Sons New York 1901

Copyright, 1901, by Charles Scribner's Sons

All rights reserved

_Contents_

_Page_ _I. Before the Plunge_ _1_

_II. Peter Waydean is Found Wanting_ _22_

_III. An Upheaval_ _45_

_IV. The Education of Griggs_ _60_

_V. Paul and the Chickens_ _89_

_VI. A Cow and a Calf_ _104_

_VII. The Advent of William Wedder_ _125_

_VIII. Marion Rises to the Occasion_ _146_

_IX. Aunt Sophy's Generosity_ _168_

_X. Uncle Benny Creates a Diversion_ _183_

_XI. The Wedding-Day_ _195_

_XII. The Exit of William Wedder_ _224_

_XIII. The Fairy Well_ _236_

_XIV. A Pastoral Call_ _254_

_XV. The Harvest_ _277_

The Abandoned Farmer

I

Before The Plunge

"You need to turn the little chap loose in the country," was the doctor's verdict, given in a low tone that didn't--thank Heaven!--attract Paul's attention, though if the child hadn't been absorbed for the moment in driving a brood of imaginary chickens into an imaginary coop under a real parlor table this indiscreet reference would have caused a scene. The doctor had been cautioned not to do or say anything that would arouse suspicion in the mind of our offspring as to the real nature of his visit, so he should have known better, but of course he couldn't know what a dread Paul had of sometime having to go somewhere without his parents.

Marion sank weakly into a chair, then sat up very straight and braced herself for what was coming; I made a frantic pantomimic appeal to the doctor for temporary silence, then I grabbed Paul by the arm, pointing out the fiction that the chickens had escaped around the end of the table into the hall. When he had darted out in pursuit I shut the door, turning in time to hear Marion say with a piteous break in her voice: "Doctor, tell us the worst--is it his lungs?"

His tone, to our over-anxious ears, had suggested a fear that he was about to break the news that our precious boy was doomed to an early grave, and it was a relief to see him not only smile, but look as if he would enjoy a hearty laugh. "Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Carton," he said cheerily. "He's a delicate little fellow, but spry as a cricket and quite sound. Send him to the country for six months,--and--ha ha!--don't coddle him so much."

Send our little Paul to the country! Even in her half-allayed anxiety Marion smiled at the idea. Paul, who had never been away from her tender care for one hour, who had howled with dismay when he gathered from our unguarded conversation that when little boys went to school they didn't take their parents too! Now Paul, up to this time, fortunately for our peace of mind, had been spared the ordinary illnesses and accidents of childhood; indeed, so carefully had he been guarded, that at the age of six he had never tasted unboiled water, unsterilized milk or unhygienic bread, and although he had learned to walk upstairs by himself, had never descended alone except when an anxious parent stood breathlessly at the foot of the stairs ready to break a possible fall. An ordinary child might have rebelled or evaded our watchfulness, but Paul was not an ordinary child, and he was preternaturally anxious to avoid danger and keep us up to the mark. His active little mind ferreted out supposititious disasters with alarming realism until our nerves were unstrung by the constant effort to guard against the possible calamities that he suggested.

Send _Paul_ to the country? _Send_ him--to the _country_! A likely thing, indeed!--and leave us to be tortured by mental visions of his dear little incapable feet projecting out of a water barrel or being mowed off by an overgrown lawn-mower, his helpless form impaled upon the horns of a bull or dangling from the mouth of a vicious horse.

That evening, after Paul was safely asleep, we talked the whole matter over. We had previously toyed with nebulous schemes of living in the country, but the doctor's opinion transformed what had seemed an impracticable but entrancingly delightful castle-in-the-air to a definite consideration of how we could make it an actuality. As Marion said, it was our plain duty to do what was best for Paul, even if we had to sacrifice a few extraneous luxuries in carrying it out, and when she used the word duty I knew that, come what would, we were going to live in the country. Duty is Marion's strong point; mine also, in a sort of second-hand way, for I have learned to obey the dictates of her conscience with an amazing alacrity. With her, the principle involved in the most trivial act is a matter of vital importance, while I am inclined to act first, and from that action deduce a principle to justify the course I have taken. Her mind is intensely analytical, and she believes rigidly what she ought to believe; I am, perhaps, a trifle more imaginative, more easily swayed by passing enthusiasms, more given to believing what I want to believe, less inclined to see a clear-cut difference between black and white.

It is not strange, therefore, that our opinions often differ, but in this case we were of one mind from the first, the only difficulty that faced us being the question of ways and means, and on this point Marion was, strange to say, more optimistic than I.

"I have a feeling, a presentiment," she said, in a tone of fervent conviction, "that if we make up our minds hard enough it will become possible. We've been talking about this for years, and I never felt until this moment that it was really going to be true."

For a moment her calm certainty influenced my hopes, then I shook my head doubtfully. "You forget," I rejoined, "that there's no other opening in sight, and as long as I'm doing 'Music and Drama' for the _Observer_ I must stay in the city. If I had regular hours, if I were a bank clerk, for instance, we might live in the suburbs, but----"

"We've been over all that hundreds of times," she interrupted, "and you know that if you had been a bank clerk I wouldn't have married you. You're not going to give up journalism, but I'm sure something will happen to let us live where we want to live. And as for the suburbs, it seems to me it would be better to get a real farm in the real country. If we could find a good comfortable farm-house near the railroad with plenty of land around it, I don't believe it would cost us any more than one of those flimsy cottages with a garden plot attached that we looked at last year."

I found, as we talked the matter over, that Marion's imagination had been fired by the idea of some quaint old-fashioned homestead with gabled roof, open fireplaces and latticed windows, surrounded by ancient shade-trees and a straggling apple-orchard. All these accessories I could appreciate, and, in comparison, an ordinary suburban cottage, one of many others exactly alike, began to seem quite out of the question. There were delightful possibilities about buying a real farm, not to mention the inviting prospect of running it afterward.

"That's a capital idea!" I exclaimed, in eager approval. "I could raise a couple of hundred dollars to make the first payment, then we could give a mortgage for the balance and pay it off with the proceeds of the first year's crop. Then we could soon make enough money to----"

I stopped short, for I became aware that my wife was regarding me with a smile of loving toleration. "There you are again, Henry," she said, with a merry laugh. "What a lot of money we'd save if I let you carry out a few of your wild schemes! We're not going to raise one dollar to make a first payment; we're not going to give a mortgage, so you'll not be able to pay it off with the first year's crop."

"But it was your proposal," I protested, "you said----"

"I didn't say we might _buy_ a farm, but I think we might be able to rent one for less than we pay for this house, and I'm sure we can live more cheaply in the country than in the city, if we make up our minds not to spend money needlessly."

It didn't seem to me that a rented farm without a mortgage could be as attractive as the one I had imagined, but I reluctantly admitted that Marion's plan might be more economical than mine. If I hadn't done so she certainly would have reminded me of some of my errors of judgment.

"And now," she continued, "the next thing to consider is how much money we can afford not to spend on the farm."

At that moment I had mentally unloaded a car of farm implements, resplendent in green and red paint, with the same feeling of delightful excitement that accompanies the unpacking of a Noah's ark. In fact, I had them arranged on the station platform and was directing my hired men how to load the wagons. "Can afford not to spend," I repeated abstractedly.

There was silence. When I awoke from my reverie I discovered that my wife was gazing at me with a curious expression, her lips tightly compressed. I stood to attention at once.

"Yes, Marion," I went on briskly. "I was just thinking about that. I was just calculating how many implements we could buy."

"Indeed? And have you decided whether you would rather go in for horse-raising or thoroughbred cattle?"

"No, I haven't got that far; but I think a herd of Jerseys would do to start with, then----"

"Then you _are_ like other men! I wonder if any city man ever farmed without losing his common-sense. Can't you see, Henry, that we'd be hopelessly in debt if we started in that way? Why, even if we were wealthy the money would soon be all gone at that rate of spending. How many otherwise level-headed men do you know who have squandered fortunes in farming for pleasure?"

"Well, there's Judge Davis, and old Hamilton, and--oh, lots of them--but, you see, they didn't know how to manage, and I would profit by their mistakes. I wouldn't borrow five hundred dollars, for instance, to invest in Jerseys, without seeing my way clear to double the money in a year or two by selling gilt-edged butter."

"Now listen, Henry," said my wife, with the indulgent yet unrelenting smile of a mother who pushes a fragile vase beyond the reach of her infant's grasp; "you're not going to borrow _one_ dollar; you're not going to have a herd of Jerseys; you're not going to buy reapers and threshing machines, horses and wagons and windmills. How much would a spade, a rake, and a hoe cost?"

I gasped. "A _spade_--a _rake_!----" I began incredulously, then I smiled a smile of feeble intelligence to conceal the fact that I failed to see the point: I know what it feels like to perpetrate a pointless joke.

"And a hoe," continued Marion, earnestly. "How much would they cost?"

"About two dollars," I replied, in vague wonderment.

"Then that settles it! You may spend two dollars in implements, but not another cent. And as for drains----"

"Perhaps you would allow three for them," I interjected, with a derisive laugh. "Judge Davis spent _three thousand_ in underdraining his farm."

"Then we'll do without underdrains. Do you begin to see now what I mean by deciding how much money we can afford not to spend."

"I believe I do," I answered, amused yet fascinated by her idea. "It will total a large amount if you keep on, but I don't see how a farm can be made to pay without investing money in it. Why, you've got to put money into anything, even into a gold mine, before you can get returns."

It was an unfortunate illustration, as I learned from Marion's pitying look. I winced; I knew what was coming. "Henry," she said, and in her face I saw that she was responding to the call of duty, "I don't grudge one dollar of that money you put into the Emperor shares last year, even if the lesson is wasted on you, as it seems to be; for that experience made me determine that I would never trust your judgment about investments again when my common-sense tells me you are wrong. Aunt Sophy says that all men who haven't been brought up on a farm are attacked by an insane belief, at some period of their lives, that they can make money by farming. She says Uncle Philip had made a hundred thousand dollars in the grocery business when he retired and bought a farm. She implored him not to do it, but he persisted, saying there was heaps of money in farming if properly managed, and he could run a farm on business principles and make it pay. But when he died she found he had left only forty thousand dollars for her to live on, and she is convinced that if he hadn't been taken away so suddenly she would have been altogether penniless. Poor Aunt Sophy! She weeps more over that money than over Uncle Philip, and the worst of it is that some semi-religious novel she has read has unsettled her old-fashioned ideas about heaven so that she is afraid that when her turn comes she'll find him at it again. The thought has hardened her so that I shouldn't be surprised if she married old Mr. Fairman and renounced Uncle Philip."

I had been about to say that I felt myself to be peculiarly fitted to illustrate paying methods of farming, but I desisted. I had been inclined to resent Marion's taunt about the unlucky mining venture, but the serious recital of the woes of her uncle and aunt moved me to laughter. I jocularly declared I would go around to the bank to see if the money we had saved by not buying a farm had been placed to my credit, but her anxiety that I should understand her theory checked my innocent levity.

"You wouldn't make light of this matter," she said, reproachfully, "if you understood its importance. Now listen: what I mean is, that instead of calculating how much money we might be able to spend on the farm we should try to see how much we can do without spending. I am sure that is the right way to avoid making a farm not pay. For example, if you think you want to buy an electric potato-digger you ought to save up the money and then----"

"And then you'll decide that I can afford not to buy it!"

"Probably--but don't you see the money would then be clear profit, and you would have it instead of a useless machine."

"It wouldn't be useless--it would dig potatoes."

"It _might_ dig potatoes, but Aunt Sophy says you can't depend on any of these contrivances, so the chances are that it _would_ be useless; besides, you said the Emperor shares would dig gold, and they swallowed----"

The thought of mining shares is distasteful to me; to have them dragged into the conversation is distracting; to look forward to having every budding plan nipped by the chilling reminders of bygone mistakes that my temperament would allow me to forget was not to be endured. "Marion," I interrupted, hastily, "it's a capital plan! I'll agree to try it if we ever have a farm, if you'll promise never to do or say anything to remind me of that stroke of bad luck."

"Don't you mean bad management?" she asked, gayly. "You have a dreadfully lax memory about these things, and I know you would have forgotten the Emperor shares long ago if I hadn't reminded you. However, you know it's for your own good and----"

"It isn't," I protested, with vehemence. "It dulls my sensibilities and hardens my heart."

Marion shook her head dubiously, but she promised.

I do not believe in my own presentiments, for I never have any, unless the ever-present optimistic belief that everything I undertake is going to turn out well is a presentiment, but I have learned by experience to place a certain amount of dependence upon Marion's. Therefore, for a few days after our conversation I confidently expected something to turn up, and every day when I returned home from the office I saw by her inquiring expectant glance that she was looking for the fulfilment of her prediction. As time passed, however, I began to think she had been mistaken, though I did not say so, for I know how annoying it is to have one's mistakes pointed out when one is most keenly conscious of them. Besides, to refrain made me feel magnanimous, and that feeling, perhaps, caused a shade of pitying magnanimity to creep into my tone when we discussed the project; so Marion, who is intensely susceptible to inflections, was perfectly well aware that I was practising one of the higher virtues, as well as showing a delicate consideration for her feelings that she might well copy in regard to mine. Of course, we could do nothing but make plans during the winter; but as spring approached, without any prospect of a change that would give me regular hours of work, it seemed as if we should have to give up, for a time, the prospect of moving to the country.

It was one morning early in March that the unexpected did happen. I was at my desk reading a batch of indignant letters taking me to task for an opinion I had expressed in an article on musical culture when a summons arrived from the editor-in-chief. Up to that moment I had been amused by the denials of my assertion that the performance of a Bach fugue on the piano as part of a concert programme should be condemned as provocative of snobbish pretence; that the giving out of the theme by the performer had become the signal for the audience to assume an air of intense and exalted intellectual enjoyment, though not one person in a hundred could appreciate the logical development of such a composition or distinguish anything but a confused intermingling of the parts; but the summons from the editor made me regard the matter more seriously. I hurriedly looked over the article to see if I had laid myself open to reproof for indiscretion. Yes, I had! At the very end the statement glared at me that musicians listened to a fugue with the strained intentness of jugglers watching a fellow-performer keeping three balls in the air; I had committed the fatal oversight of not saying _some_ musicians. Probably an irate deputation representing the profession so notoriously sensitive to truthful criticism had waited upon the editor to demand a public retraction of the libel.

"Sit down, Carton," said the editor, as I entered. "You've been doing 'Music and Drama' for two years now," he said musingly, laying down his pen, "and I don't think I have expressed my opinion of your work to you personally."

I shook my head mutely, afraid of what was coming next.

"That, however, doesn't indicate any want of appreciation on my part. You have changed the former commonplace rut of criticism to something that people read with interest, and if they laugh and swear alternately, so much the better. You have a knack of telling the truth with a light touch that is quite refreshing. How would you like to edit the agricultural page in the weekly?"

I gazed at him in bewilderment; ready to laugh if he meant to be jocular, incredulous of his serious intention. "The agricultural page!" I exclaimed.

"Rather sudden, eh? Well, I'll tell you how the matter stands. Old Rollings is out of it, and I've got to fill his place at once. Now it strikes me that farmers don't hanker after instruction in their newspaper--they want to be entertained, and I think you might make the thing go. The salary will be higher and you can take your own time for the work."

"But I don't know much about agriculture," I protested.

"That isn't of any consequence. There are the exchanges, the Farmer's Cyclopædia and the scissors, and you'll learn not to waste space by advising farmers to plant corn in hills three feet apart or to feed potato bugs on paris green. The main thing is to make the department entertaining, so let yourself go and be as funny as you like, provided there's a grain of horse-sense at the bottom. For instance, you might have an article on how to make the farm pay, taking as a text--um, let me see--ah--you might advocate----"

"The planting of summer boarders in rows three feet apart?" I ventured.

The editor leaned back in his chair and laughed. "Go ahead, Carton," he said warmly. "You mightn't be able to draw a better looking pig in a prize competition than the rest of us, but I'd bank on you making a pretty turn to his tail."

The die was cast, and yet, for a few days at least, I felt as one might, who, accustomed to prate of the certain bliss of a heavenly home, is suddenly presented with a pass to the delectable land. A kaleidoscopic vision dazzled me of a picturesque country house, an orchard, a cow, a horse, real hens for Paul, our own fruit and vegetables, but beyond I could not see clearly, for I was unnerved by the sudden transition from the fine arts to agriculture. I had gained a superficial insight into rural life from the stand-point of the summer boarder, but I was well aware that I didn't know as much about farming as about art and literature. However, the editor's confidence in my ability to do the work and Marion's glowing enthusiasm caused me to keep my misgivings to myself. Indeed, though I never boast, I find it difficult to detract from another person's estimate of my knowledge or attainments; it seems less egotistical to smile and look modest than to enlarge upon one's own affairs. There was just one thing that caused me a pang. Marion, in pointing out the advantage it would be to me to have a free hand in writing, casually acknowledged that for a long time she had felt that criticism was not my forte and that I would write better when I had more scope for my imagination. My pained surprise at this confession moved her to merriment, and she laughingly declared that a woman's vanity was all on the surface, but a man's was unfathomable. Did I answer back? No, I didn't, for when I am truly grieved I merely smile faintly with patient, loving forgiveness; besides, I didn't know what to say. Afterward--for I didn't realize it at the time--I saw that I felt hurt, not because she had underrated my previous work, but because she had heretofore simulated a proper appreciation of it. I cannot bear to think that my wife is capable of stooping to any kind of pretence, and I am quite single-minded in this, for I like her to be more perfect--infinitely more perfect--than I am. One would suppose this statement to be unquestionable. It isn't; she immediately asks _why_, and in the silence which follows when I am trying to think she repeats the query with such challenging meaningful emphasis that, alas!--I cannot say.

II

Peter Waydean Is Found Wanting

"No," said the postmistress, shaking her head dubiously, "I don't think you'd find a place to suit within a mile of this station. You say you want a small farm with a middling good house, and the only vacant place about here has a hundred acres and the house ain't no better than a shanty."

It was the prettiest bit of country that we had yet found in our search for our ideal farm, and the answer of the postmistress caused us keen disappointment. Paul's little hand, which had clutched mine with a tense expectant grip, suddenly relaxed. "Are we not going to live in the country?" he asked, in a trembling voice.

"Oh, I forgot the Waydean homestead," the postmistress called out, as we turned away; "but anyway I don't suppose"--she looked at us in turn with a speculative air, smiling slightly--"you could strike a bargain with old Peter."

"Why not?" demanded Marion eagerly. "Is it a nice place--is it near the railroad?"

"It's right next the turn of this road, about half a mile south. No one has lived there for twenty years, but he keeps the house in repair, and I guess it's cleaner than most houses that's lived in; but old Peter----" she stopped speaking, went to the door and looked apprehensively up and down the road. "Now I'll just tell you the plain truth," she continued confidentially. "I know it looks uncharitable to talk to strangers about your neighbors, but everyone round here knows what old Peter is, and if you're going to have any dealings with him you'll need to keep your eyes wide open. He's a crank and a screw, and some wouldn't know they was getting skinned till he'd got the job done. And such a man for law! It don't seem to matter much whether he wins or loses, he can't seem to get along without a suit going on. Now if he happened within earshot at this present minute he'd have the law of me and he'd summons you for witnesses."

"Thank you for the warning," I interjected, as she paused for breath. "What is the house like?"

"It's one of them old-fashioned kind, with tiny panes in the windows set cornery, and----"

"Not _diamond_ panes, surely?" cried Marion, with a gasp of excitement.

The postmistress gazed at her with an expression of incredulous pity. "Oh, no," she replied; "just common glass, and I think you'd find it trying to have to look out of a different pane with both eyes. Then them big fireplaces would make it hard to heat, but you could board them up and put a base-burner in the hall and run the stovepipe----"

"Oh, no!" ejaculated Marion, in horror. "That would be dreadful! Are they real big fireplaces, with andirons?"

"They're big enough in all conscience, but I don't mind seeing any hand-irons. There's some rubbishy old brass firedogs and fixings."

Marion's eyes sparkled with joyful assurance and she stood up with an eager movement; I motioned her to wait.

"Do you happen to know," I asked the postmistress, "what is the rent of the place?"

"Well, he asks different rents from different people," she answered slowly, her features showing grim amusement, "and no one has ever managed to strike a bargain with him yet. Last spring a man came along from the city thinking as the place was standing idle anyway he ought to be able to rent it cheap for the summer, so he hunted Peter up to show him round. He was one of them big blustering sort of men that acts as if country people wasn't no better than door mats, but Peter followed him about as meek as Moses, carrying his overcoat and umbrella for him. They come in here about train time, then the man pulls out a dime and says, 'Here, my man,' says he, 'is something for your trouble. It's a ramshackle old house and ain't worth two hundred a year, but I'll give you fifty for six months.' Peter was looking at the dime in a puzzled sort of way, then he smiled a curious sort of smile and bit the edge before he put it in his pocket. 'You're most too kind, sir,' he says, 'for it has been a great entertainment to me to show you about, and I don't often have the company of a real gentleman. I'm sorry the place is beyond your means, but the fact is that I couldn't afford to let you have it less than two hundred a _month_. I'm sorry,' says he, 'that you had so much trouble for nothing, but I'll just slip this half-dollar into your pocket and you'll have it to spend when you get back to the city.' With that he lays down the overcoat and umbrella and walks out. And for all the fine clothes and jewelry of that man, he used such profane language that I had to ask him to stop or else step outside. That's just like old Peter--he's so touchy there's no getting on with him, though he can be as sweet as pie if he happens to take a fancy to a person. There was once a man----"

At this point Marion adroitly interposed with another question, and in two minutes we were on the road to Waydean. Paul and I straggled along behind, scarcely able to keep up with Marion's eager pace, as she breathlessly commented upon the delights of living in such a house as the postmistress had described. I became so enthusiastic, in sympathy with her, that by the time we caught a glimpse of the chimneys through a belt of trees I was almost persuaded that open fireplaces and diamond panes were the only essentials of an ideal house. We had been directed to look for the owner at the diminutive cottage he lived in a half mile farther along the road, but with a common impulse we turned in at once to the inviting roadway that led up to the old homestead. On our right a mossy board fence enclosed an old orchard, the gnarled and rugged trunks of the trees set in a carpet of newly sprouted grass, the shadows of the still leafless branches outlined on the knolls and hollows just, as Paul expressed it, like a real colored picture out of a real picture-book.

We hurried along the driveway canopied by the spreading branches of the pines that grew on each side, and rounding a curve we came within sight of a rambling frame house set on a knoll with a neatly terraced lawn sloping toward us.

From the moment Paul darted forward with a shout of delight and seated himself on the steps of a diminutive colonial porch we felt the joy of possession. We stood off and surveyed the roof. The shingles were delicately tinted in moss-green and a few bricks were missing from the upper courses of the chimneys, but the glass in the windows was unbroken and the house looked exceedingly habitable and home-like.

The front door was locked, so we peered in at the lower windows and then went round to the rear, finding the kitchen door wide open. Marion entered first and I saw her run across the room and drop on her knees in front of a cavernous brick fireplace with a little cry of delight. By the time I reached her she was emerging from its sooty recesses with a smudged but radiant countenance, smiling exultantly as she swung a rusty iron hook outward.

"What's that thing?" I asked.

"That thing!" she echoed, in pitying incredulity. "Do you mean to say, Henry, that you don't know a crane when you see one?"

Before I could plead ignorance she discovered that the ceiling was timbered, the walls wainscoted, and that a settle stood in the dim corner near the fireplace. "It isn't worth while looking at the rest of the house," she said, sitting down on the settle with a smile of perfect content; "you may go and find that old man. Whatever happens, we're going to rent this place, but don't tell him so--bring him to me. In the meantime, remember he's _got_ to take a fancy to you, so be just as charming as you know how to be. Oh, you needn't laugh! I know charming doesn't seem the right word to apply to a man, but that's what you are when you do your best. You can be more agreeable than any man I ever knew, and you can be more--but there, do go, go--you'd stand around all day if you thought I'd go on talking about you."

There were several points connected with her remarks that I would have liked to have more fully explained, but she was so insistent that I prepared to go, and it was not my fault that I didn't start, for we suddenly became aware that Paul was missing. In frantic haste we searched the premises and at last found him sitting on a low mound of freshly turned-up sandy soil at the back of the barn, a batch of sand-cakes neatly laid out on a board beside him. Now Paul had never before sat on the ground, he had never learned how to make any kind of mud-pies, as far as we knew he had never heard of the art, yet some subtle instinct had drawn him to the only spot within reach where there was a heap of suitable soil. The sight was appalling, for it seemed as if our brief forgetfulness must result in his having an attack of pneumonia or some other dreadful ailment. Not a word did we say before Paul, of course, for we are careful not to alarm the dear boy, both for his sake and our own, but we conversed by expressive glances as we walked back toward the house, assuring each other that we must hope for the best and be prepared for the worst, and that by some miracle he might escape.

We had stopped to look down the entrance to a large underground root-house, the door of which was open, when from the inside came a succession of feeble groans. There was a heap of bags in the doorway, and in an instant I realized what had happened: that some man had been overcome by the poisonous gases that gather in pits where vegetables are stored.

I am not one who rashly plunges into danger without weighing the consequences, so I didn't bravely lose my life by rushing into the pit in the vain attempt to carry another man out, for I saw there were several good reasons against such a course. First, I knew that I couldn't carry a man anywhere even under the most favorable conditions; second, I couldn't bear to think of the shock to Marion if she should become a widow; third, it was perfectly clear to me that if I remained in the root-house Marion would attempt to save me, then Paul would remain outside and become an orphan, a howling orphan. Further, I was not justified in risking an undoubtedly valuable life for one that was probably of no account.

A long pole with a hook on the end would have been useful, or a piece of rope, but neither was to be found, and the groans of the man in the root-house were becoming still more alarming, so, noticing the heavy chain which held the well-bucket, I hurriedly tried to detach it, but to my despair I found it was securely spiked to the well-sweep. It was then that Marion made one of the most brilliant suggestions that I have known her to make: that by swinging the sweep to one side the chain would hang directly over the pit. I don't know that she saw the full utility of this move, but I did. Holding my breath, I stood in the doorway until I could dimly see the prostrate figure on the floor, then I darted inside, looped the chain about him and dragged him to the entrance. He was a heavily built, sharp-featured man, past middle age, and although he lay on the ground and gasped for breath there was a slight contortion of his features that suggested repressed mirth. Marion wanted me to go for help, but I told her that he was recovering and only needed to be moved from the entrance where he lay to the level ground where the air was fresher. She said I would never be able to get him up the incline, so I hastened to complete my task, my only fear being that help would arrive too soon. I tenderly arranged a pad of potato bags across his chest and back, then shortening the chain I passed it under his arms and again looped it around his body. All being ready, I climbed up on the weighted end of the well-sweep, but finding there was not enough weight I persuaded Marion to take my place, then I sprang up beside her. The effect was amazing to us, unaccustomed as we were to this primitive contrivance, for our end descended to the ground with a bump, and, like a hooked fish, high in the air dangled the man whom I had gone to so much trouble to save. He emerged from unconsciousness more rapidly than a butterfly from its chrysalis, and his remarks as he gyrated at the end of the chain were most abusive. The epithets were evidently intended for me, and my anger was aroused to such an extent that I felt inclined to let him stay where he was. "Keep cool," I shouted, "and I'll see about getting you down. Remember," I admonished him, "that--that there are ladies in the room. If you behave yourself and tell me where to find a ladder, I'll try to help you."

His face grew crimson and he struggled for speech. "A ladder!" he burst forth, at last. "Get off this darn' see-saw."

I got off, so did Marion; but I don't think we understood the proper way to get off, for there was a surprising thud, and I saw that my patient was sprawling on the ground under the beam. I hastened to his relief, reminding him as I unwound the chain that he should have taken my advice and waited for the ladder. He stood up unsteadily, wiping the dirt off his face with his sleeve, then he took off his coat, folded it with ceremony, laid it on the ground and squared up to me.

"Now," he said, with vicious determination, "I'm going to settle with you."

He was such a disreputable and absurd figure that I couldn't help smiling at his demonstrations. "Come, sir," I said persuasively; "you shouldn't give way to your temper. I know that from your stand-point, it seems annoying to enter a root-house and then discover that you are suspended at the end of a well-sweep, but I am not to blame. It would have been far less trouble to me to leave you to be smothered among your potatoes than to drag you out."

I spoke with effect; his expression changed, though he studied my face with suspicion. "What's your name?" he demanded.

"Henry Carton," I responded, with a certain hesitation, born of a diffidence that always seizes me when I try to make this announcement appear unimportant. "And yours?" I asked, genially.

"Waydean," he replied, gruffly.

"Peter Waydean!" I exclaimed, with sudden enthusiasm, as I grasped his hand. "The very man we were looking for! Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Carton: Marion, Mr. Waydean."

He bowed awkwardly, putting on his coat. "Well sir," he ejaculated, with an explosive laugh, "you do beat the Dutch!"

If our host had been a little remiss on the score of politeness at first, he made up for it by profuse expressions of gratitude and by showing us every attention during the time we spent with him in looking over the place. I saw that he had taken a fancy to us, and that he liked the idea of having such desirable tenants, for his clear blue eyes, unusually limpid for an elderly man, beamed with kindly intention as he talked; at the same time, his truthfulness compelled him to say that he couldn't quite forgive me for having hoisted him so high with the well-sweep. "I tell you, Mr. Carton," he said, with a chuckle, "I'm mighty thankful to you for hauling me out of that pit, but all the same, I give you fair warning that I'm bound to get back on you for the way you done it."

After we had viewed the barn and stables we all went into the house to talk over the business. He was a man of strong family affection, so he would never part with the homestead, but we were just the sort of people to take care of what was dear to him, and he would be willing to rent the place to us. He could not live in such a large house himself, on account of his wife being an invalid, but he had often refused to rent it to other people, usually because--well, he didn't mind telling us, in confidence, it wasn't every family he would care to have as neighbors--and then, there was such a difference in children! Now that dear little lad of ours, he could swear, had never in his life thrown a stone at a window-pane or pencil-marked wall-paper--a little peaked, wasn't he?--but just wait till he had been six months at Waydean, and had bunnies and guinea-pigs, and chickens, turkeys, lambs and calves, and a pony of his own--just wait!

It was indeed a delicate matter for me to mention pecuniary compensation. Perhaps if I had been alone I would have ignored that point altogether, but Marion's significant glances I could not ignore, so, though it sounded positively brutal in the face of his disinterested appreciation of our worth, I asked him the rent.

He made a gesture implying utter indifference. The fact was that, though most of the people in the neighborhood were grasping and mean-minded, he was a man who was built straight-up-and-down-and-square-all-round, and what he considered above everything was that he would have congenial neighbors. The farm was worth--well, he wouldn't say what it was worth, but I might have it at three hundred dollars a year. There were fifty acres of land that would grow enough produce to pay the rent of the whole place and something over, and as I would need a good many implements he would sell me his for a fraction of their cost, and if I wanted a good team of horses and a few cows all I had to do was to make my choice among his.

I had been fascinated by the frankly ingenuous assurance of his manner; in fact, I was mentally exulting in my good fortune in finding such a generous landlord, when the sound of Marion's voice aroused me.

"Fifty acres, Mr. Waydean!" she exclaimed. "That would never do. My husband is quite opposed to the idea of trying to make money by farming, and----"

"Oh, quite," I interjected, shaking my head with emphasis.

"We want to live in the country," she continued, "but we can't afford to actually farm."

"Between ourselves, Mr. Waydean," I hastened to say, "I've seen so much of city people fooling away money in farming that I've made up my mind not to work any more land than I can attend to with a spade, a rake and a hoe."

He stared at us in turn, incredulity giving place to gloom as he realized that I was serious; then he turned to Marion in a burst of candor. "I tell you what, ma'am," he said, with warm approval, "I ain't met many men with so much downright common-sense as your husband. I'll own that I'm a bit sorry that he don't want to work the farm, for I'm getting old and I'd like a rest, but the truth is that running a farm costs a lot of money, and farmers come out at the wrong end of the horn most years. However, you've took a fancy to the place and I've took a shine to you, so I'll tell you what I'll do: I'll work the farming land myself, and you can take the house and grounds for four hundred a year."

Peter stood in the attitude of an auctioneer who is forced to throw away a desirable no-reserve lot on the first bid; surely, then, my ears had deceived me into thinking that this was a larger sum than he had asked for the whole farm.

Marion was the first to speak. "I don't quite see," she began dubiously, "isn't that _more_?"

"Certainly, ma'am," he responded; "but how far'd a hundred dollars go in wages for hired help? If I wasn't throwing in my work free I couldn't afford to take them fifty acres off your hands at that figure. Of course, I'd sooner you took the hull place at three hundred, then as much more would hire you a man, and if Mr. Carton looked after him pretty sharp there might be enough crop to feed your horses and cow, and he wouldn't have to spend more than a thousand dollars in stock and implements to start with."

I was slightly irritated that he addressed these remarks solely to Marion; one might have supposed that he thought she was the head of the family and that I was not even a party of the first part.

"I'll think the matter over," I began, with dignified hauteur, "and let you----"

Peter turned to me hastily. "That's as reasonable as I can do," he explained, with plaintive determination; "and I've got to know right away if you want the place."

"Well," I began, with an eager eye on Marion for the cue, "I--I----"

"There's another man after it," urged Peter, "and he's coming to-morrow for my answer."

Marion gasped. "We'd better pay the--the four"----

"The four hundred," I decided, for her, "and let you run the farm."

"Done," snapped Peter.

It was evening when we parted from Peter Waydean on the station platform. He shook me warmly by the hand as the train appeared.

"You're a gentleman, Mr. Carton, from the word go," he shouted hoarsely in my ear. "The bargain's made, and though there's no writing betwixt us, there's no need of any, for we're men of honor. I'll tell the other man"----

"Yes, certainly," I assented, detaching myself as the train slowed up.

"Not a word to the neighbors about the well-sweep, or about what you're paying for the place," he continued, holding the lapel of my coat. "They're a prying, gossiping lot, and I wouldn't like it known that you hoisted me on that darn see-saw. It's the first time Peter Waydean was ever treed, but considering that you're the man that done it, we'll cry quits."

As I caught a flashing steely glint in the depths of his ingenuous blue eyes the conviction was borne in upon me that, like the simulated stillness of a deadly revolving tool, his simplicity and truth were more apparent than real. And this was the impression that made me so silent and thoughtful on our journey back to the city.

For the close of such an eventful day we had little to say to each other. With every mile that we travelled an unpleasant suspicion grew stronger as I thought over the bargain with that guileful man; gradually the suspicion changed to a certainty, and then it was that I became aware that Marion, who had also been strangely silent, was studying me with a tantalizing air of knowing my thoughts.

"What is it?" I asked, with sudden annoyance.

"I was just thinking," she began, then she stopped to laugh gleefully--"do you remember what the postmistress said about him skin"----

"Don't repeat it," I snapped, squirming. "Of course I remember, but I don't see the application."

"Well, you shouldn't expect to if there isn't any," she said, with renewed mirth. "It was odd, too, that he warned you he'd pay you back for hoisting him."

"Will you be kind enough to explain the connection?" I demanded fiercely.

It really is unsafe to use that tone with Marion. There was a little flash in her eyes; my glare faltered, then her brief resentment melted into sympathy.

"Connection?" she answered. "Why, what connection _could_ there be?"

My hand sought hers, in gratitude. There was a pause, then we both laughed, and somehow the bitterness of knowing I had been gulled passed away; I even felt a sympathetic appreciation of his artistic touch in assuring me that we were both men of honor.

Suddenly Marion grasped my arm. "Henry," she exclaimed, "he's the man you want!"

"The man I want?"

"Why, yes; didn't you say you wanted a central figure for that set of rural sketches you've planned?"

"By Jove," I cried, with kindling enthusiasm, "he's a character all ready made! If I do him justice, he'll be a--a regular gold mine."

I was rather puzzled by a meaning, but to me, inscrutable smile that lingered on Marion's face after this comment, but she so often sees more in a remark of mine than I do that I prefer not to spoil the effect by asking for an explanation.

III

An Upheaval

The April day on which we moved to Waydean was an ideal one in regard to weather, and my arrangements came so near to perfection that we began the usually irksome work of moving with joyous zest. I had chalked a number on every piece of furniture and box of sundries, also on the door of each room in the farm-house, so as to avoid having the kitchen stove carried upstairs and the bedroom furniture placed in the parlor, and this plan elicited warm approbation from Marion. To say that her approval gratified me scarcely expresses my elation, for although I was proud of the plan I was quite prepared to have her point out some fatal defect. I can indulge in platitudes and commonplaces with impunity, but a really original, trade-marked idea is usually a gauntlet flung into the arena, the activity of my mind producing a reflex action upon hers. In this case I took extraordinary care to provide against anything happening to mar the successful carrying out of my scheme, not even closing the bargain with the owner of the moving van until he had indorsed it with enthusiasm. This man, Bliggs by name, urged me to patent the idea, waxing as indignant as if I had impugned his moral character when I modestly demurred.

"Look 'ere, Mr. Carton," he snapped, "wot could be more simpler? W'en there's a man or a woman a-standin' at the door shoutin' to be keerful an' hurry up, an' put this 'ere an' that there, an' hobstructin' gin'rally, there's bound to be trouble. W'y, in Lunnon you don't ketch the bobbies botherin' about common drunks in movin' season, for they knows there's goin' to be a full docket of assaults an' batteries an' 'busive langwidges. W'y, with your plan there wouldn't be none o' that, for a man 'd jest onload 'is dray as mum as a trained pig a-pickin' hout cards. Mr. Carton," he concluded, "Hi'll put every blessed piece in the right room an' set up yer kitchen stove an' bedstids free."

My heart warmed to Bliggs, for his active movements as he loaded the wagon inspired me with confidence, and when he drove off with his two helpers I had not a doubt but that he would carry out his cheerful assurances.

It was late in the afternoon by the time we locked the door of our dismantled house. The click of the lock sent a lump into my throat that caused me to turn quickly away, but Marion lingered, heaving a little sigh of regret. It is a peculiarity of hers to look back if that process is at all likely to result in a sigh; for my own part, I prefer to look straight ahead if I suspect there is to be any attempt to stir up my well of emotion, and, in consequence, on rare occasions I have been called cold-blooded. Paul is different in this respect; he is the dividing line between us. Marion caught him younger, and his plastic little soul has been moulded with loving care. He is sympathetic and responsive. He is not like any one musical instrument; he is like two. As easily moved as an Æolian harp, he has the fire, spirit and continuity of the bagpipes.

"Look, Paul!" said his mother tenderly, her eyes moistening. "Say 'Good-by, old house.'"

It was, at the least, an injudicious remark. Up to that moment we had been positively gleeful, and Paul had looked upon the change as a glorified picnic, for I had taken pains to instil the belief that Waydean would be an earthly elysium for a small boy; but now, with a woman's pensive touch, my carefully built fabric collapsed. Paul's big solemn eyes grew cloudy; a faint crescent appeared on each side of his mouth, deepening gradually. I watched this development in dumb despair, while Marion was absorbed in tender reminiscence, then, before I could utter a warning cry, his mouth shot open to the amazing degree that I knew so well. I grabbed him hastily, kneeling down. "Listen, Paul!" I shouted into his ear. "We'll move back--to-morrow--if you like."

I stood up suddenly, amazed; a hand had clutched my collar and almost pulled me backward--Marion's flashing eyes met mine. "Such a falsehood!" she gasped. "How dare you!"

I did not hear these words, but I knew what she said by the motion of her lips; besides, her manner made it perfectly plain that I was supposed to have infringed the truth, so speech was superfluous. As a matter of fact I could have disproved the charge, but not before Paul, for we strive to avoid discussing such matters before him; anyway, I would have needed a megaphone to make myself heard. Therefore, I stepped humbly aside, with a gesture that indicated my complete willingness to leave the matter to his mother.

"Paul, dear,--listen," she called out, bending over him; "we're not going to move back--_ever_."

The effect was instantaneous; he dropped to the sidewalk, renewing his efforts as he wriggled in anguish. I was obliged to pick him up in accordance with Marion's frantic gestures, and we retreated into the empty house, where she pacified him in course of time. I do not know the precise method she adopted, but I think, from snatches of conversation that reached me, that beautiful native birds figured largely--among others, storks! I know that storks do not grow at Waydean, yet I preserved a grim silence, thinking what a strong case I might make, were I not too generous to do so.

I was justly indignant, for I do not seem to be able to make Marion understand that, like her, I have a horror of untruth; in fact, I am more cautious in my statements than any other journalist I know; but while I am placidly content to accept any assertion of hers without question, she is likely to quibble over almost every statement I make. I admit that I am forgetful, that to-morrow I may say exactly the opposite to what I say to-day, that what I condemn in the abstract may seem to me expedient and proper under certain conditions, but I object to being openly accused of prevarication. Paul, as I have said, is not an ordinary child (and although people who are not his parents are inclined to use a compassionate tone in making that remark, I do so with defiant pride), therefore he should be treated with tactful consideration not accorded to common children. He responds to my sympathetic touch, I am glad to say, with sweet concords; that is, of course, if my elbow is not joggled by his mother. In this case, though I spoke in haste, my words would have stopped Paul's outcry had Marion left him to me, and had she not been prone to suspicion she would have seen that my statement was absolutely truthful. I knew that the child had been moved by a passing sentiment and would be more than content with our new home once he was transplanted, but I was deeply grieved at his mother suspecting me of being so base as not to be willing to move back to the city the next day _if Paul liked_.

We had missed the first afternoon train, and after a dreary wait for the next one we arrived at the little country station just at dusk, and before we reached Waydean darkness had fallen. We groped our way around to the back door and stumbled into the kitchen, where I lit a candle I had brought. My heart sank at the first glance about the room, for it was quite empty and I feared that our goods had not arrived, but when I peered fearfully into the next room I saw that what looked at first like a railroad box-car was a rectangular erection of all our household belongings. We stared incredulously by the light of the flickering candle, walking around the structure in despair. Next the ceiling, like a statue on its massive base, our cooking-stove perched giddily--Bliggs had set it up with a vengeance!--on the very bottom lay all our beds and bedding, hopelessly buried, for if I attempted to disturb the pile, down would plunge that threatening mass of metal. Bliggs was a fiend!

A strip of torn wall-paper hung down like a banner from a projecting curtain-pole; it was covered with rude pencillings, which we deciphered together after Paul had dropped asleep on my overcoat, with this result:

_Mister Carton._ _heluv a rode._ _hosses nere ded._ _men kickt._ _basht em fur emtin botel._ _basht em fur mutinin bout histin stov._ _to dark to ce chok marks._ _done nex bes stile._ _heluv a gob wel dun._ _wilyum bliggs._

I opened the kitchen door and looked despairingly out into the darkness; the twinkling light of the next farm-house shone far away like a star on the horizon; I must go over there and ask for food and lodging as if we were penniless wayfarers. Marion stood beside me, and together we tried to assure each other that the people whose light looked so cheery must be warm-hearted and hospitable enough to make us welcome. As we gazed, a second light appeared near the farm-house; evidently some person had come out with a lantern, for we could hear his carolling whistle accompanying the gliding movement of the light. It was coming nearer, for we could soon make out the lilting melody of the whistler and the encircling glow that surrounded him, and I felt Marion's grasp tighten on my arm with a sudden hope that had also sprung up in my breast. Nearer and nearer he came, until the globe of light grew larger and cast titanic shadows of a pair of nimble legs that passed around the end of the barn, through the yard, up to our very door, where we stood spellbound; then the whistle ceased, the lantern was raised, and by its dazzling glow we saw a little man with kindly gray eyes and thin reddish whiskers standing there.

"Good-evenin'!" he called out, cheerily. "We heard there was some people movin' in to-day, and we thought you might be kinder upsot, so I come to see if you wouldn't step along over to our place and have supper and stay the night. The missis has the beds ready, and Sairey knows how to fix things comfortable."

There was a moment's awkward pause, for we were dumb with excess of emotion.

"You don't know my name, and I don't know yourn," he proceeded. "Mine's Andy Taylor, and my place is next south, over there where you see that light."

I clutched his hand. "Mr. Taylor," I gasped, "come in. I was afraid you were an angel--perhaps you are, but we--we're awfully glad to see you."

"It's so good"--began Marion, then she collapsed.

"Why, where's your load?" he asked, looking around the vacant room.

I showed him, while Marion held the candle aloft. I related my wrongs with passionate fervor; I exhibited the Bliggs epistle, translating the rude characters as I traced them with a trembling forefinger and called down vengeance on the head of the perpetrator. A spasm shot across my visitor's face and his wide-open mouth closed with a snap; he leaned forward helplessly as if a sneeze had seized him, then a wild outburst of hilarity smote our astonished ears. "Oh, Lordy, Lordy!" he groaned. "The upliftin' power"--he pointed upward to the stove--"of--of strong drink!"

Andy Taylor's lantern shed its cheering rays over us as he led the way across the fields to the distant beacon-light of his house. Forlorn, homesick, discouraged, as we had been, his friendly hospitality filled us with gratitude too deep for words. His unquestioning acceptance of us as guests was staggering, accustomed as we were to the artificial restrictions of social intercourse in the city. As Marion said afterward, I might have been a temporarily retired burglar who had eloped with another man's wife and kidnapped a child, or we might have been dangerous lunatics, or worse,--we might have been vulgar people! But yet, with the all-embracing charity that thinketh no evil, Andy's sprightly step led us from the chaotic discomfort of our new home to the warmth and cheer that awaited us in his. No wonder, then, that Marion wept like a tired child on the shoulder of the motherly old lady who welcomed us, or that Andy, after one glance at my expressive face, backed away with a hurried remark about having to attend to the fire. Later, when Paul had been put to sleep in an old-fashioned billowy feather bed, we settled ourselves in the kitchen for a smoke. We could hear from the sitting-room the continuous restful murmur of the women's voices, rising and falling in the responsive cadences of that sweet communion that betokens, even in the most prosaic utterances, the mingling of kindred spirits of the gentle sex. I look back upon that evening as one of the pleasantest I ever spent, and I enjoyed to the full the quaint sayings and funny stories of the genial little man who entertained me.

The clock struck eleven before either of us noticed the lateness of the hour. Andy rose reluctantly, knocking the ashes out of his pipe.

"Well, Mr. Carton," said he, "I'm mighty glad you're goin' to be a neighbor of mine. The women-folk seem to have hit it off, too," he added, opening the door into the next room, "and"----

He stopped speaking, and a look of astonishment crossed his face as a tumultuous babel of conversation reached our ears. The voices no longer rose and fell--they rose steadily, each dominating the other, it seemed, and yet--marvel of marvels!--in perfect amity, though they no longer responded but spoke at one and the same time.

"If it was two men?" whispered Andy, with a chuckle.

"Exactly," I replied; "it would mean a fight."

We listened intently. It was a problem--simple to the speakers--of gussets, and pleats, and back widths, and yet not one connected sentence could we hear.

"I tell you what, Mr. Carton," said Andy, in his hoarse whisper, "I've been married forty-two years, and I ain't found anything yet as entertainin' as the ways of a woman."

"Well," I suggested, "what about the ways of two women?"

Andy doubled himself over in silent glee; as for me, I felt that I had said something rather neat, and tried not to smile myself. Just then the voices in the next room suddenly ceased.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Mrs. Taylor. "It's after eleven. I wonder what them men is talkin' about so quiet in the kitchen. If your husband lets him, Andy'll jest talk him blind, once he gets started."

Marion laughed merrily. "Why, Mrs. Taylor," she said, "how absurd! You don't know Henry, or you wouldn't say that."

"Talk about women gossipin', as men do, Mrs. Carton, I believe there's more gossip goes on among the men down at the post-office every day than all the women round here do in a week. Now Andy"----

At that moment Andy softly shut the door, shuffled a chair across the floor ostentatiously and announced in a loud tone that it was time to get to bed.

IV

The Education Of Griggs

We had lived for two months at Waydean, and, although as far as agricultural operations were concerned we might as well have been in the city, I had begun to appreciate the delights of a country life without the usual drudgery, worry and expense. I was not raising grain at two dollars a bushel to sell for fifty cents, or making butter at a cost of a dollar a pound to sell for a quarter of a dollar, but I had time during the hot weather to enjoy the sight of Peter Waydean's waving fields as I swung in a hammock under the trees, while that old sinner frizzled in the glaring sunlight over his work. Occasionally I refreshed myself by sauntering to the field where he happened to be working, to have a little friendly conversation with him, and I never failed to let him know that new beauties were revealed to me day by day in the agreement to pay him an extra hundred dollars for working his own land. At first he had showed signs of looking upon me with the contemptuous irritation of an angler who has accidentally landed a mud-pout, but when I artlessly hinted that I would have been willing to pay a higher rent for the place rather than make a slave of myself as he did, I could see that his previous delight in his own cleverness was completely overshadowed by the bitter regret that he had not made more of his opportunity.

We had no cattle of our own, but Peter's were in plain view in the lower field. We had no sheep, but Peter's little flock picturesquely dotted the landscape. We didn't own a horse, but, after all, Marion had a terror of being run away with, and I had made an inflexible rule never to go within range of a horse's hind legs. And in the matter of confining my farm expenditure to the price of a spade, a rake and a hoe, I had been most loyal and consistent; I had stuck not only to the letter of our agreement, but also to the spirit. Indeed, I was not merely resigned, but cheerful, knowing that the more closely I appeared to cling to Marion's plan the sooner would she begin to waver.

But a chance remark that I overheard Abner Davis make one morning as I boarded the train changed my mental attitude in an instant. "He ain't no reg'lar farmer--oh, Jiminy, no!--ha, ha!--he's jest"--How he finally labelled me to his fellow-rustic I never heard, for the train slowed up at the platform, and his voice was drowned in the noise. I just had time to turn, before I stepped on board, to cast a withering glance backwards--a glance that was wasted, however, for Abner was poking the other man in the side with his thumb and they were both doubled over with merriment. Of course, he hadn't intended me to hear, and I was quite aware that I was not a farmer, either regular or irregular, but it was this fact that made the remark so galling. There are two things I cannot bear: one is what Marion calls the truth, for that always turns out to be something odious and objectionable; the other is ridicule. That morning my mind was filled with bitterness, for Abner Davis had managed to combine in one brief remark the essence of much that I disliked to hear. The rhythmic beat of the car-wheels clanked out the derisive refrain, "He ain't--no reg--'lar far--mer!" By the time I reached the city I had decided it was due to my self-respect to put things on a different basis. Certainly, I was not a farmer. I had neither a horse, nor a cow, nor a sheep--no, not even a guinea-pig! I had no agricultural implements, except,--oh, hateful thought!--a spade, a rake and a hoe.

I was in this mood when Harold Jones unloaded Griggs upon me in the restaurant where I was taking lunch. I knew from the twinkle in Harold's eye when he introduced us that he meant mischief. "Griggs," he explained to me, "has got farm-on-the-brain. Carton," he explained to Griggs, "had such a severe attack that his mind is unhinged. He imagines--ha, ha!--that he's a farmer! Now you two sit down and exchange symptoms. I have to get back to the office."

I treated Griggs with distant civility, not because he was thrust upon me, but because it usually takes me a year or more to get beyond formalities with an acquaintance. But Griggs was impervious to hauteur; he was unconstrained and hearty enough for two. I could see that Harold had spoken the truth in his case, for his farming mania was at its height, and he was overjoyed at finding a man who had done what he merely dreamed of doing. He was a produce commission merchant, he told me, and he was convinced that he could double his income and prolong his life by running a farm in connection with his business. It was a simple proposition, he stated, that a child could grasp. A farmer makes a profit by farming, a commission merchant by commissioning; therefore, if the merchant were also a farmer would he not absorb both profits?

Griggs tilted his chair, hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, and challenged me to point out a flaw in his theory. I declined, for the simple reason, I said, that it was flawless; then I rose to make my escape. Griggs adjured me to sit down for a minute; he had a few questions to ask, and I was the man of all men to give him the information he sought.

Now a stitch in time, it is said, saves nine; a lie, a little one, a mere clerical plea of a pressing engagement, would have saved ninety or more. Had I not instinctively refrained from loosening one stitch in my garment of righteousness it would not have been torn to tatters.

I hesitated; I sat down; I was lost. Griggs grew friendly, more friendly, affectionate; he addressed me by my surname, and I realized that I was in the clutches of the objectionable type of person who claps you on the back at the second meeting, and demands with a boisterous laugh, "How goes it, old man?"

Beginning with generalities pertaining to agriculture, he questioned me searchingly upon my private affairs. I can parry, and occasionally thrust--but not against a battering-ram. Grigg's questions were not to be evaded. I could have declined point-blank to answer, thus intimating that he was a boor, but that would have been unpleasant to me--perhaps not to Griggs. I could have followed my natural inclination by telling the truth, but I recoiled from laying bare to a stranger the peculiar economies of our rural life; besides, I shrink from intrusion with the same shyness that causes me to slink guiltily into a shop if I see a man approaching who is indebted to me. There was but one other alternative; I took it. I smiled my most frankly ingenuous smile; I beamed upon him with warm-hearted encouraging candor and--lied! Yes, lied with beggarly duplicity, and I kept on with Spartan fortitude; and so smooth is the grade on the broad and downward road that presently I was enjoying my own depravity. My imaginings no longer appeared as ugly bloated caterpillars, but spun themselves swiftly into chrysalides and instantly emerged as gorgeous butterflies, dazzling to their creator. And yet my mind remained alert and clear. Every statement that I made was notched deeply into my own brain, so that I could afterwards recall the slightest detail; into Griggs's also, for he snapped at, swallowed and assimilated every fragment of information with the avidity of a starved dog. We began in this way:--

"How many acres in your farm?"......"Fifty." (It really was my farm, for I was paying more than the rent of the whole place to Peter.)

"How many horses?"......"Five--two working teams and a fast driver." (Fortunately, I knew Peter's stable.)

"Cows? .. Calves?"......"Three cows--seven calves." (I was pretty sure of the cows, but I had to guess the calves.)

"Jupiter! You never raised seven calves from three cows?"......"Oh, yes. Three pair of twins--the odd one is last year's."

"Last year's! Thought you had only been farming two months?"......"Yes, but I bought one calf with her mother."

"Three pair of twins first season! Great Caesar--what luck! What did you pay for the farm?"......"Six thousand, two hundred and fifty."

"Cash?"......"Cash."

"The devil! You must be well fixed?"......"Oh,--so, so."

"How'd you make it?"......"Emperor stock."

"Emperor! You must have been in on the ground floor?"......"Ground floor."

"Oh Lord! How many men do you keep?"......"Just one."

"What do you have to pay him?"......"Three hundred a year."

"Must be a nice place for children. How many have you?"......"Five." (This was theoretically correct. Paul had invented two sisters and two brothers, all invisible, to play with. A man's family should be screened from publicity, and this reply seemed to make Paul strictly impersonal. He did not ask me how many wives I had.)

Now I looked upon this person as a man whom I would never meet again, never having met him before, and I parted from him with joy after having answered every question that he asked to his satisfaction, also to my own. I did not dream of entering a maze that would exhaust my ingenuity to find my way out of without ignominiously crying for help. But before I was done with Griggs I recalled many things of which I had never seen the full significance before. One was a tract I had read in my youth entitled, "The First False Step." Another was a remark that Marion had once made in anger: that I would say anything, without regard to veracity or the immediate future, to avoid unpleasantness. I had got her to retract the assertion to a certain extent by professing to be deeply wounded, as indeed I was, but I saw now that she knew me better than I knew myself.

Two days later, on my next trip to the city, I found Griggs awaiting me in my office. "Hello, old man!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I haven't been able to sleep since I saw you--can't think of anything but getting out to see your farm. Why, Carton, what's--what the dev"----

"Stand back," I cried warningly, with averted face and outstretched arm--"keep well away! I'm--I'm in trouble. My boy--my boy--" I sank into my chair and covered my face with my hands.

Griggs staggered back. "Which one?" he gasped.

"_Which_--oh,--ah--Andrew," I answered despairingly. "He broke out last night--I'm afraid it's--" I bowed my head.

"It's _what_?" demanded Griggs, moving rapidly away.

"Scarlet fever," I groaned.

Griggs vanished. "Say, Carton," he called out, from the other side of the door, "awfully sorry. Other kids all safe?"

I laughed--a hard metallic laugh--I knew it sounded like that, for I seemed to stand off and listen. Griggs didn't wait to hear more. "Hell!" he ejaculated, and his heavy footsteps pounded the stairs.

I thought that was the last of Griggs. It was--for nearly two months. By that time my point of view had changed, as the danger of complications receded, so that I sometimes found myself chuckling over the clever way in which I had managed to rid myself of an insufferable bore. I did not mention the matter to Marion, for I well knew that in some things she was incapable of judicial consideration, without regard to qualifying circumstances; then, reasoning and argument availed not. An act, she insists, is either right or wrong, therefore it is useless to juggle with words in trying to make out that it is mostly right and only a little wrong. Had Marion developed artistic ability, I am sure it would have been in the line of black and white, while my talent would as surely have run to color. It is the moral in a fable that appeals most strongly to her; it is the fable itself that delights my imagination. A moral is all very well in its place--like a capstone to a tower,--but there it should stay. To detach it for the purpose of concrete personal application, I have explained to Marion, is an outrage on the properties of family life. To choose the moment when a man is smarting under the consciousness of error for the purpose of pointing out the folly of his foolishness is positively inhuman. What, I ask, would have been the moral effect upon the prodigal had his father prepared a feast of proverbs instead of a fatted calf? This question she has never answered except by a baffling tight-lipped smile--a smile that convinces me of the utter folly of hoping that a woman will listen to reason. Yes, I had good cause to believe that mentioning the Griggs episode would lead to useless discussion.

It was a warm day in midsummer when I found a note from Griggs in my morning mail. He had learned at the office that I was spending my vacation at home, and he concluded that all danger of infection was over.

" ... Now, old chap," he wrote, "I can't wait any longer; I've got to have a look at your place. My wife has been dead against my buying a farm, but she has given in this much: that if I can find a city man who gets more out of his farm than he puts into it, she'll let me go ahead. So you're my man, Carton. I want you to give me the tip in regard to facts and figures, and if you have to dress them up a bit, like the Annual Report of a Loan and Investment Company, you may do so, with my blessing. I'm no good in that line myself, but I'm strong on a second-hand affidavit. I'll drive out on Thursday afternoon to have a look around your farm, then you can post me on details."

It was nine o'clock when I received this epistle. Griggs, I calculated, could not arrive before the middle of the afternoon, and he would probably not stay more than an hour or two, so as to leave time to drive back to the city by daylight. The problem that confronted me was whether it would be worse for me to tell the truth to Griggs, or to Marion, or to both, or to risk the probability of Marion learning it from Griggs, or of the latter from my wife. I shrank from each solution in turn, and yet, worst of all, was the thought of being burdened any longer by the secret of my own guilt. I could have made up my mind to confess to Marion had I not been sure that she would insist upon Griggs being told the instant he arrived. That thought hardened my heart. I had gone too far to retreat; Griggs should be deceived to the bitter end.

It was at this stage of my mental conflict that the thought of confiding in Andy Taylor came to me as a sudden inspiration. That dear old soul, I felt sure, would take a positive delight in helping me out of this difficulty; indeed, I thought of borrowing his farm for the afternoon, until a better plan presented itself. I couldn't see the humorous side of the matter very clearly just then, but I knew Andy would. He did. I found him hoeing his corn, but he willingly left his work and sat down in a shady spot with me to listen to my tale. I did not attempt to excuse myself; in fact, I was rather more severe in my self-condemnation than I thought the circumstances warranted. I wanted sympathy and encouragement; I wanted to be assured that I wasn't as miserable a sinner as I declared myself to be; and I knew that, in dealing with Marion, the way to get what I yearned for was to assume the most abject repentance. But my serious air failed to impress Andy, for he was so delighted with the humor of the situation that, at first, he gave himself up to unrestrained merriment. I had to paint my despair still more vividly before he subsided into helpful contemplation.

"To tell you the _truth_, Mr. Carton"--I winced at the word, and at the wink that accompanied it--"I think it's a darn good joke." He stopped to laugh once more, and I permitted a sorrowful smile to steal over my face. "And as for my opinion of your conduct," he went on, "I believe you're jest a nateral-born play-actor." I started in surprise, for this was not the kind of consolation I had expected. "That bein' the case," he concluded, "you ain't no ways blamable."

"Why, how do you make that out?" I asked, trying to conceal my elation.

"You done it," he answered, chewing a piece of June grass meditatively, with his eyes half-closed, "as innocent as that little boy of yourn when he makes believe he has all them brothers and sisters. You ain't got all the live-stock that you described, but you want 'em so bad that your imagination sort of got a cinch on your judgment."

I grasped his hand in speechless gratitude,--not only for the charitable view he took of my conduct, but also that he had pointed out the way to disarm Marion's criticism when the time came for me to confess my misdeeds. I looked at my watch. In three or four hours Griggs would appear; there was no time to lose.

"Mr. Taylor," I said, hesitatingly, not knowing just how to broach my plan, "having gone so far, I--I don't quite see my way clear, except--by going a little farther."

Andy nodded in perfect comprehension. "See that strip of tamarac swamp over there?" he asked. "Well, it ain't no more'n half a mile wide, and it'd come nateral to me to cut through there in a bee line, but if you was to try, the chances is that every bit of it would look like every other bit, and you'd be glad to git out even on the side you started in on."

"I would," I admitted. "If I could only start afresh!"

Andy chuckled again. "Well," he said, with hearty encouragement, "I'm prepared to holler round the edge, or go in to look you up, or anything you say. Now, what's your scheme?"

"It struck me," I replied, casting aside my embarrassment, "that perhaps you wouldn't mind lending me some stage furniture for the afternoon." I enumerated the required number of horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep.

Andy laughed in glee, then he shook his head in assumed solemnity. "No, Mr. Carton," he said, "I couldn't do that, but I'll give 'em to you outright; then, if you like, you can give 'em back to me in the evenin'."

I was touched by his evident desire to save me from any unnecessary perversion of the truth, but I assured him that Griggs would not think of asking me if the animals he saw on my place were my own; besides, I would feel overwhelmed by the munificence of this temporary gift. But Andy was obdurate, so I let him have his way. There was just one other difficulty--that of getting my wife away from Waydean for the afternoon, but that was easily arranged. I remembered that she was in the first stage of the rag-carpet fever, and had announced her intention of getting Mrs. Taylor to instruct her in the art, so when Andy brought me into the house to have a drink of fresh buttermilk, I had only to hint at Marion's desire to learn in order to secure a pressing invitation from Mrs. Taylor to bring her over in the afternoon.

Andy accompanied me to the gate. "Mr. Carton, keep up your spirits," he said encouragingly, in parting, "and everything will go all right. You needn't feel nervous about your wife gittin' back too soon, for when two women gits started rag-carpetin' they don't remember they've got husbands until on about supper-time. When they settle down we'll drive the stock over and arrange them to look nateral. I was goin' to wash my buggy this afternoon, and I was thinkin' I might as well do it over there. I ain't had no experience of play-actin', but you need someone to look like a hired man, and I guess I could do that."

I had thought of the hired man problem, and the same idea had occurred to me, but I knew it wasn't my place to make the suggestion. "No, Mr. Taylor," I replied; "I couldn't think of letting you take such a menial part. I'd rather give up the performance--" I wilted suddenly at his look of sceptical amusement--"unless," I added, "you would really like to do it."

"I really would," he responded, with a broad smile.

Griggs came. To my amazement, he asked no questions, at first. He had a business-like, preoccupied air, as if he were a bailiff preparing an inventory for a bill-of-sale, and he looked at me, I fancied, as if he suspected I had hastily hidden some of the effects that might legally be attached. He scarcely noticed Peter's growing crops, but he studied the domestic animals intently, jotting down memoranda in his note-book. The inspection evidently satisfied him that they were not stuffed, although in their unfamiliar surroundings the cattle wore a strained and unnatural expression, as if they thought he was an amateur photographer, and feared they might not be taken full face. His manner exasperated me, but I managed to treat him politely, even when he remarked that my hired man was a rum-looking old coon and that the horses needed grooming.

Suddenly he shut his note-book with a snap. "Carton," he burst forth, "I've been taken in!"

"Taken--in?" I ejaculated. He had an equine cast of countenance, and his eyes rolled in such a vicious way that I instinctively moved directly in front, looking at him fixedly. My surprise was not assumed.

"Duped--bamboozled--hoodwinked!" he snorted.

I grew pale with rage. I knew I did, though I could not see myself. My eyes flashed; I could feel them flashing. I would have given five dollars to see their scintillations in a mirror. I drew myself up to more than my full height--thank Heaven, I could at least see myself elongate! Andy Taylor, standing beside his buggy with a sopping sponge in one hand, his mouth hanging open and his reddish side-whiskers floating in the breeze, suddenly turned his back and hugged himself, his shoulders heaving in silent spasmodic convulsions.

"Mr. Griggs," I said icily, my tone, I was pleased to hear, as pale and frosty as a shaft of the aurora borealis, "what do you mean?"

"What do I mean?" he shouted. "I mean that I'll pay Harold Jones back for this--I'll teach him not to run a rig on me!"

"Harold--Jones?" I queried vacantly.

Griggs burst into a laugh that sounded like a horse's neigh. "Brace up, old man," he adjured me, slapping me on the back. "You don't seem to get on to my meaning, but you don't need to look like an idiot. I'll tell you the whole business."

Briefly, it seemed, he had happened to meet my friend Harold that day, and had mentioned his proposed visit to my farm; incidentally, a warm discussion had arisen. Harold had been convulsed with merriment at Griggs's conception of the extensive scope of my farming operations. When Griggs adduced his conversation with me as evidence Harold had laughed still more uproariously, declaring it was the best joke he ever heard--further, that my live-stock consisted of five old hens and some chickens. Griggs knew Harold to be fond of joking, but had, reluctantly, believed him. He had not expected, he admitted, to see such a well-stocked farm.

"In other words," I said, with some heat, "you expected to find that I"----

"Hold up!" interrupted Griggs hastily. "You see, Carton, I was mad at the thought of having been made a fool of. I can understand a fellow lying on a business deal, when it's to his interest, but to sit down and lie cold-bloodedly, just for recreation, like"----

"Like whom?" I demanded wrathfully, as he paused.

"Like that brute Jones," answered Griggs, with a vicious jerk of his head. "I'll get back on him, you bet!"

I began to see daylight. "Come away up to the house and we'll have a little refreshment," I said, with hospitable zeal.

Griggs brightened. It was a warm day, so I brought him around to the south veranda, but I would have entertained him anywhere else had I remembered that Paul was there. He was curled up in a chair, absorbed in a book. I knew he was oblivious of what had been going on, but there is never any certainty of what Paul may, or may not, say, and I felt a qualm of misgiving. Griggs proceeded to attract his attention by snapping his fingers, as if the boy were a puppy or an infant, remarking, to me, that he was wondering where I kept the kids. Now Paul is not shy, but we never could induce him to notice a stranger's advances without being formally introduced, consequently, if his mind is suddenly withdrawn from his imaginary world, he looks shy; worse, he looks as if he were unseeing, deaf, and an idiot. My mind was preoccupied, or I would have avoided difficulties by introducing Griggs, but I unfortunately neglected that formality. Paul's stolid and incurious gaze rested on my visitor; I looked on spellbound, knowing that his mind was working with intensity, and that something was coming; Griggs shuffled uneasily.

"Well, sonny," said Griggs, at last, "what do you think of me?"

I have watched a toad sit motionless waiting for a fly to come within reach with exactly Paul's expression. I noticed that his eyelids didn't even blink. Griggs glanced at me; I felt, rather than saw, the patronizing condolence of his look. It is the look of the proud father who raises children guaranteed to fit ready-made clothing.

"Paul," I prompted, with pregnant meaning, "why don't you answer? What do you think of this gentleman?"

"I think, father," he answered, in his dreamy, deliberate tone, addressing me pointedly, but still looking at Griggs, "that he looks like a horse."

I felt as if I were falling from a dizzy height, but the sensation was not altogether painful. Griggs bore up better than I could have hoped, and declared with an attempt at jocularity that he would rather look like a horse than a cow. I had no more presence of mind than to reprove Paul on the spot for his rudeness, a course which could only result in one of two things: a howl or an argument. This time it was an argument; but I could better have stood a howl, for he pointed out that his mother had taught him to always tell the truth, and----

"That will do, Paul," I interrupted, hurriedly. "Stand up, and I'll introduce you to Mr. Griggs."

I left them to entertain each other, while I escaped into the house for the refreshments. Had I not done so, nothing could have warded off an indignant dissertation from Paul on the difference he was careful to observe between stating actual facts that came under his observation and his habit of making up fictitious persons and events. The latter propensity we never checked, believing that nothing should be said to prevent the fullest development of his wonderful imagination. My own excursions in the realm of undiluted fiction were trifling in comparison to Paul's; before him, doubtless, lay a future with his pen beside which even mine must pale to insignificance.

The room I was in opened upon the veranda. Paul was sitting beside the window, and I could hear his voice distinctly, but only the alternate interrogatory rumble of his companion's. Evidently Griggs was making the most of his opportunity to learn more of my domestic concerns.

"Oh, he's all right," I heard Paul announce. "He was only playing sick to get out of working. Father said it wasn't worth while to send for the doctor, and we shut him up in the barn so that the others wouldn't take it. We didn't let him out till he said he was quite well thank-you."

"They're all half-brothers and half-sisters. Not of any consequence, you know--just to amuse me."

"Father said he guessed he'd send them to the Orphan's Home; he couldn't afford to feed such a large family. Then he said he'd let me keep them if I made them work hard for their board. I can tell you I keep them going."

"Father says he cares more for me than for the whole crowd, and that he shouldn't be expected to bring up step-children."

"Yes, I let them play for an hour on Saturdays."

"They're all out picking potato bugs except Tom. He's in jail."

"Up in the attic. He stole a candy out of my box, and I locked him up for a week. He gets bread and water only once a day."

"They each have to bring a full pail of bugs, or else they don't get any tea."

"Father says he'll have Tom put in the Reformatory if I say the word."

What further information Griggs gleaned I had no means of knowing, for Paul was doing so well that I thought it better not to interrupt the conversation, and I took the opportunity of having a brief talk with Andy Taylor before returning to the veranda. Griggs was obviously distraught and had little to say except that he was in a hurry to get back to the city, but he looked at me as if he were mentally formulating charges to lay before the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he neglected to thank me for holding the gate open as he drove through, then I had difficulty in impressing upon his mind what he should say to Harold Jones.

"Tell him," I concluded, holding the horse's head, "that I consider it an impertinence for a mere acquaintance to pry into my private affairs. Is it anyone's business but my own, Mr. Griggs, whether I keep only a few fowls or a large assortment of domestic animals? Tell him that I would never dream of asking you how many firkins of butter and crates of eggs you handled in a year, or if your profits exceed the commission you----"

"G'lang there!" shouted Griggs.

V

Paul And The Chickens

"I have no fancy for the country, as you know, my dear Marion," wrote Aunt Sophy, in conclusion, "but your description of Waydean makes me long to accept your invitation. When I heard that Henry had rented a farm I thought you must be simply crazy to let him do it, but your letter has reassured me. Of course, if he has quite determined not to go to any expense in the expectation of making money out of the land, and if you _both_ want to live there, it is a different thing. I think it is a splendid idea not to work any more land than he can attend to with a spade, a rake and a hoe. Take my advice, Marion, and keep him to that--no matter what arguments he may use--and you will be perfectly safe. If your poor uncle had only been guided by my advice, or if I had been less easily swayed by his hopefulness, I would have had more than a pittance to live on now. But no,--it was buy this, and buy that, till....

"How lovely it must be to have your own milk and butter and cream and fruit, and, above all, to know that they're _clean_! And the chickens! Do you know, I can't touch chickens in the city; I haven't tasted one for a year, I am so disgusted at the thought of how they may be fed,--and yet I am just longing for a taste of plump, clean, ... grain-fed----"

Marion's voice wavered; she stopped reading. I uttered a prolonged whistle, then laughed in a hollow mirthless tone that brought a responsive gleam to Marion's worried face. She left the breakfast table and looked anxiously out of the window at the back of the room, then sat down again with a sigh of thankfulness.

"What a mercy Paul wasn't within hearing," she said; "how he would have howled!"

I went to the window. Paul was surrounded by our flock of twenty-seven half-grown chickens and five hens. In one hand he held his little tin pail of corn; with the other he dealt out one grain at a time to each in turn, calling the fowl by name and reproving those that tried to snatch the others' share. "Jeremiah, here's yours--come along Aunt Noddy," I heard him say coaxingly.

I sat down again and stared at Marion hopelessly; she responded with a gaze of mute despair; then we both studied the tablecloth without speaking, feeling that the skeleton we had ignored for months had at last stalked unbidden from the closet.

As I thought the matter over I could see that Marion was entirely to blame for this hopeless complication. If she had allowed me to get eggs from pure-bred stock for setting we would have had twenty-seven chickens of exactly similar appearance that Paul never could have individualized, never have named, never have loved with the passionate fervor that he bestowed on each one of the variegated specimens hatched from eggs at ten cents a dozen. My eggs, I computed, would have cost not more than five dollars; so in order to save four dollars and a half, Marion had saddled us with a flock as unapproachable from a culinary stand-point as so many sacred cows. This conclusion presented itself with such clearness that I was on the point of submitting it to Marion when I remembered how unpleasant it was to me to listen to wholesome truths, so I merely looked unselfish and hummed thoughtfully.

My wife regarded me with suspicion, her frown deepening. "I have asked you repeatedly," she said, with frosty distinctness, "not to hum, and not to look like that."

My complaisance vanished. I am not easily irritated, and I try to avoid answering back, but I cannot stand being told not to look like that.

"Marion," I retorted, "I don't wonder you feel annoyed, but you may as well face the difficulty now. I'm tired of people asking me how we like living in the country, and then remarking that it must be fine to have your own chickens. Of course, I'm willing to keep up appearances and to make-believe that having our own chickens is one of our many daily luxuries; but now that your Aunt Sophy is coming we've got to eat them, or she'll know the reason why. Oh, yes, I know," I added, as she tried to interrupt--"I know we can't have them in the abstract. We've got to kill and cook and pick the bones of Abner, Jeremiah, Lucy, or some other of the boy's pets; but if I had had my way about the eggs he couldn't have told one from another, and we might have had an occasional fowl without these painful personal associations."

I regretted my rashness when I saw Marion's look of calm scorn, her manner leading me to expect a revival of some of my mistakes. I can evolve plausible theories, but she usually shatters them with the most distracting personal applications.

"I hadn't intended to point out that you are responsible," she said, "but since you are so unjust as to try to blame me, I must do so. Don't you see, Henry, that it is but another instance of your habit of evading unpleasant duties. I have told you repeatedly"--I squirmed in protest, for I do hate that phrase, and I knew so well what was coming--"that you would say anything to tide over a disagreeable scene,--and it's true."

"Honestly, Marion," I protested, "I--I wouldn't. I'd jump into any kind of a scrimmage--I'd do anything to please you. If you'll only be cheerful I'll--I'll see that it doesn't happen"----

"There you are again," she interrupted, in a descending cadence of utter dejection. "Oh, dear--it is so hopeless! Listen, Henry, and see if you can understand this: Paul is now six, and yet he never knew there was such a thing as death until last month. You had your way about that--and what was the result? The child nearly went crazy when his bantam hen died. If you had been at home, I have no doubt you would have told him it was asleep, but you more than made up for that by assuring him that it had gone to heaven."

"I did nothing of the kind," I protested indignantly. "Paul came to me"----

"The child came to _me_," Marion went on sternly, "perfectly happy in the thought of Bijou having gone"----

"He came to _me_," I insisted, "asking if Bijou had gone to heaven. I said I _hoped_"----

"It doesn't matter so much what you said as the way you said it. However, as you say, Aunt Sophy is coming, and we must eat some of those chickens; so _you_ may face the situation and settle with Paul. If you had explained to him that chickens were made to eat, as I wanted you to do in the first place, you wouldn't have had this trouble now. If I thought it would be a lesson to you I could stand my share, but I know you'll forget all about it in a week and be ready to do the same thing again, so you may as well take the consequences alone."

I was preparing to ask for a properly executed death-warrant, specifying the first victims by name, but before I could speak my wife dived into her pocket for a handkerchief and retreated upstairs.

I can tackle a disagreeable duty when there is no other course open to me, but I am not upheld, as Marion is, by a strong sense of righteousness; indeed, I am inclined to feel personally unworthy to attempt any good act that is patently out of my line, yet on the rare occasions when Marion behaves in this childish manner I throw my conscientious scruples to the winds in my frantic desire to assuage her grief.

I found Paul teaching a hen and two chickens to sit still as he drew them around on his little wagon. My resolution wavered as I watched his innocent enjoyment, but the thought of Aunt Sophy spurred me on. Besides, if Marion was bloodthirsty enough to want these poor creatures eaten, it was not for me to feel faint-hearted.

"Well, Paul," I said, with spurious cheerfulness, "giving them a ride? Are these some--ha, ha!--you want to keep for pets?"

Paul has a quick ear for a false note. He studied my face with grave wonderment, his earnest gaze piercing my jocose mask. "Why, father," he exclaimed, "your voice sounds so queer--and what a funny question! They're all pets,--of course, I want to keep every one."

"Come and sit on the bench beside me," I said ingratiatingly, "and we'll have a talk.... Do you know that--that people sometimes have to--that is, that people don't usually raise chickens for pets?"

"Oh, yes, I know," he replied, nodding his little head with philosophic certainty. "Most boys would rather keep dogs and rabbits, and ponies and other animals; but I don't want anything for pets except hens and chickens, and perhaps--well, I think I would like a pair of white pigeons. I heard you saying to mother that I wasn't a bit like other boys. Is that one way I'm different?"

"It is," I answered with curt emphasis.

Paul snuggled closer to me and leaned his head on my shoulder. "You say that as if"--he hesitated shyly--"as if you wished I was like other boys. Am I not as good?"

"You're better, my boy, far better!" I exclaimed, in quick remorse.

This remark may appear injudicious, but Paul is like me in many ways, and there is not a shadow of vanity or self-consciousness in his character; no amount of praise, or even flattery, could disturb the natural equipoise of his self-esteem, but he is quick to feel the hurt of unjust depreciation. When Marion forgets my imperfections and tells me I am the best man in the world, I am aware that she is drawing it a little strong; at the same time, I am strengthened and uplifted by her opinion, and I feel the yearning to do noble things, to be more worthy of my pedestal, to attain that serenity of temper which mortals name angelic.

Paul's face brightened, and I knew that I had made amends for my previous abrupt and jarring tone. I began again cautiously, taking care to speak with soothing mellowness. "I don't think I ever heard of anyone keeping twenty-seven chickens and five hens for _pets_."

A merry light danced in Paul's eyes. "That's what you said about farming with a spade, a rake and a hoe," he reminded me, "and mother said we must do what was right without thinking about other people."

Chance, instinct, or his inherited nimble mind had enabled him to checkmate me as neatly as Marion could have done it; I moved back. Passing lightly over the objectionable features, I briefly sketched the magnitude of the chicken-raising industry for supplying city markets, pointing out the necessity for poor farmers selling their fowls to buy food and clothing. Despite my care he was visibly shocked.

"No matter how poor _we_ were, you would never send _our_ chickens to market?" he inquired, breathing hard.

There could be but one answer to that question, and after I had fervently disclaimed the possibility of poverty ever making me so heartless, each of us remained buried in his own thoughts for a brief time. The chickens gathered around, and I fancied they regarded me with intuitive dread in their glistening eyes, as if they waited to hear my next attempt to seal their doom. An overgrown bully suddenly pecked a weaker brother, pulling out a bunch of feathers viciously as he spurned the victim with his feet. Paul darted to the rescue and brought the brutal assailant back to the bench a prisoner.

"What is that villain's name, Paul?" I asked with eager interest.

"Why, this is Angelica," he answered. "Don't you remember you named him yourself when he was first hatched?"

I did remember. He was then a beautiful yellowish ball of fluff, with large, soft, wide-open eyes, the prettiest one of the brood; now he was grown into a greedy, swaggering, insolent swashbuckler, proud of his stature and fine plumage.

"He's a dangerous criminal," I said, feeling his plump breast appreciatively, "and it might be better to--to"--somehow the word stuck in my throat; I hesitated.

"I know, father," cried Paul joyfully. "I'm the policeman and you're the judge--he must be tried and then sentenced to wear a muzzle."

Angelica was tried and sentenced, then muzzled with a small rubber band that fitted tightly over his bill. His antics amused us so much that for a few minutes I forgot my fatal errand.

"He looks wicked enough to kill some of the others," I remarked, after a pause. "Do you know, Paul, how a person who kills another is punished?" He looked up with sudden, awed interest. "They put a rope around--him, and--and"----

"And _what_?"

"----fine him a dollar and costs."

"Oh!" he gasped, "I'm so glad that's all. And do they take the rope off afterwards?"

"I believe they do," I replied, in deep dejection.

"Father, I just love chickens. Don't you?"

"I do, indeed," I affirmed, with sudden reckless, despairing intention; "but I love them in two different ways. If they're nice, well-mannered birds I love to see them running about with their feathers _on_; but if they're naughty I love to see them not running about with their feathers _off_." Paul laughed in glee. "Your mother and Aunt Sophy like them too," I went on warily, my heart thumping; "and I think if chickens are cruel and bad they deserve to be stuffed"--his expression changed suddenly, but he still looked bravely into my eyes--"with bread-crumbs, and roasted, with thick--brown--rich--gravy."

Paul jerked his little hand from mine and stood up in front of me, his face twitching and his eyes brimming. "You greedy--_greedy_--GREEDY!" he gasped.

"Paul,--my boy,--listen," I implored; "your aunt Sophy is coming, and she's awfully fond"----

My words were lost in a prolonged howl. He had a phenomenal voice, but this delayed howl eclipsed all previous ones. I followed him in frantic haste, eager to forswear all designs on his pets, but he fled as if I were after his scalp. When I finally found him, too late, he was in his mother's arms, and I knew she had promised him everything, from the look she turned on me,--a look that caused me to slink silently away, a soulless brute, and alas!--a tailless one.

"Henry," said Aunt Sophy, complacently, as I drove her to the station after her visit, "in all the time my husband had his farm I never could get him to use our own chickens. He said they cost him two dollars apiece, being from thoroughbred stock, but I see you have more sense and raise good plain barnyard fowls that you can eat every day if you want to. Why, we must have had them three times a week while I've been here, and you seem to have a good large flock yet. I've tried a dozen times to count them, but they always went criss-cross. How many have you got left?"

"Just twenty-seven," I answered, stroking my mustache with modest pride.

VI

A Cow And A Calf

I did not approve of Marion's habit of keeping accounts at Waydean. There was always a missing balance, but I never could get her to see what a needless worry and waste of time it was to try to locate it, or how much better it is to take my plan and merely count the cash on hand to settle one's financial standing. It is diverting to me to calculate future hypothetical receipts and expenditures, but it is the reverse of entertaining to look backwards at the irrevocable past, the past that is called back by various carefully entered items in Marion's account book, prominent among which looms payment of three hundred dollars for Emperor mining shares.

It was one evening while I was engaged in preparing my weekly agricultural page for the _Observer_, and Marion was poring over her account book that she suddenly dropped her pencil and exclaimed: "Henry!"

"Well?" I asked, with meek resignation, my brain beginning to stiffen, for I judged from her tone that she had arrived at some miraculous result in figures.

"We've been living in the country four months," she said impressively, "and what do you think I find? We've actually paid more for butter and milk and vegetables than in any four months while we lived in the city."

"How strange," I commented, trying to look interested.

My wife smiled slightly, in a way that I find peculiarly irritating. "You're only pretending to listen," she said, "and you couldn't possibly understand while you look like that."

My weariness vanished; I started up indignantly. "While I look like what?" I demanded.

Marion laughed. "That's better," she said. "I'd rather see you look angry than stupid. Now I'll try again to get your attention. Do you remember what you said when I gave you the choice of a lawn-mower or a hammock for your birthday?"

I did remember. I had made a swift calculation at the time that a hammock would be easier to run, so I had urged Marion not to go to the expense of a lawn-mower, reminding her also that it might properly be ranked among the tabooed farm implements.

"Certainly," I answered, at a loss to know what was coming, "I said I would prefer a hammock."

"And do you remember that you promised to hire or borrow one of Peter's cows to crop the grass on the lawn?"

"Well, I didn't exactly promise. I said it would be easy enough to get one."

"And now the grass is as long as hay. Why didn't you do it?"

I frowned, for I hate insistent, unnecessary questions,--questions that are bound to lead up to some unpleasant climax that it would be better to avoid. I could stand being thrown overboard without ceremony better than being forced to walk the plank with measured tread, yet if I protest against this Socratic method of arriving at conclusions she tells me with pained surprise that it is for my good,--that I should learn not only to regret my mistakes, but to thoroughly understand why I am sorry. Rather than have her say that, I am willing to answer any ordinary question with outward docility.

"The plan didn't seem so feasible when I thought it over," I replied meekly. "It would have looked foolish to offer to pay Peter for letting me feed his cow, and I couldn't make up my mind to borrow one, so the time slipped away before----"

"Of course it did," she interrupted; "the way it always does. But, after all, I think"--a merry light danced in her eyes--"I'll forgive you. There'll be all the more grass for,--oh, dear, you do look so funny!--_our cow_."

"_Our_ cow!" I gasped, in stupefaction.

"Henry," she burst forth excitedly, "I've been trying to break it to you gently, but you don't seem to understand. I've come round to your way of thinking--you may go and buy a cow to-morrow."

It was a complete surprise to me that Marion should be so suddenly seized by the desire to own a cow. For my own part I would rather have started with a herd, but still, it was something to be thankful for that she did not insist upon beginning with a goat. Then there was the possibility that a cow might grow into a herd; that would mean a hired man, horses, implements, a large dairy business, more land, an ultimate fortune. Yes, I was more than gratified that Marion was beginning to see that my ideas on farm management were sound.

When I asked our butcher the next morning if he knew of any cows for sale in the neighborhood we awaited his answer with breathless anxiety. He half-closed his eyes, studying the mud on the wagon-wheel in profound meditation, our suspense intensified by this dramatic pause.

"I'll tell you what I'd do," he said, at last, pointing northward impressively with his long knife. "I'd go up there on the clay where the pastures is dried up and the farmers is feedin' hay at fifteen dollars a ton, and I'd buy a cow for half what she could be bought for down here where the grass is green."

That sounded reasonable, and when he proceeded to name some of his customers "on the clay," I stopped him at the name Waydean.

"Any relation of Peter's?" I asked, with sudden interest.

"His brother," he answered, with an odd smile--"and it's a dead fright how them two men hate each other! I believe Peter'd go clean off his head if you was to buy a cow from John."

I smiled with satisfaction. Peter had set his snares in vain in many artful endeavors to sell me some of his belongings; with sunny smiles I had avoided giving him a chance to add to the exorbitant rent that I paid him, and he could scarcely conceal glances of sour disappointment in my presence. That I should buy a cow from anyone else would, I knew, be pain to him; his pain would not be less if I bought her from his brother John.

"Well," said the butcher, when I had announced my intention of having a look at John Waydean's cattle, "I pass within half a mile of his place on my round, so I can give you a lift if you like to come along with me. Of course," he added, taking a sidelong survey of me, "John can't skin a man quite so neat as Peter, but he's pretty sharp on a bargain, and you want to keep your weather eye open when you dicker with him. Know much about cattle?"

Some people can boast about acquirements they haven't got; I cannot. I merely looked shrewd and modest, nodding slightly to the butcher, simultaneously with a faint movement of one eyelid. Marion, misunderstanding my silence, exclaimed confidently: "Oh, he knows _all_ about that sort of thing. He writes articles for the _Observer_."

At this point I disclaimed, with becoming embarrassment, all pretension to unusual lore, but the butcher looked profoundly impressed and delighted.

"That's all right!" he said cheerily. "I know his cows is mostly fresh, but he's got one or two strippers."

I went into the house to get ready for the trip; Marion followed me. "Henry," she inquired, in a confidential tone, "what _are_ fresh cows,--and strippers?"

It was the very problem I was wrestling with. If the butcher had not been waiting, and if Marion hadn't followed me so closely, I would have snatched a moment to consult my books of reference, but I had no time even to collect my thoughts properly. I was in the awkward predicament of the schoolboy who knows he knows the answer to a question, but somehow cannot think of the words. I was in a great hurry, but Marion was so anxious for information that I did my best to enlighten her.

"A fresh cow," I said, struggling into my coat in jerks, "is one--in the prime--of life--and--and vigor; a stripper, on the contrary, is merely--a--a middle-aged--juvenile."

I seized my hat and hurried away. As we drove out of the yard I noticed that Marion was standing in the kitchen doorway gazing after me with the expression of one who is prevented from seeing the bottom of a pool by the reflections on its surface. I waved her a gay farewell and hoped for the best.

I had a dim idea that I could find out indirectly during the drive what the butcher thought these terms meant, but I needed all my mental agility to make a creditable appearance of understanding his voluble allusions to grades, stockers, springers, shorthorns, yearlings, heifers, and numerous other varieties of cattle. My answers were brief and guarded, and when I tottered I was so swift to recover my balance that my errors were not apparent to my companion. On such occasions I may sometimes be suspected of not being familiar with a subject, but I would defy anyone to prove my ignorance. If Marion's reputation for veracity had not been at stake I might have been willing to act the part of a humble tyro asking for information, but since she had plainly said that I knew all about cattle it was my duty to try to make her statement appear credible.

I descended from the wagon feeling that I was utterly incapable of choosing a cow, but I concealed my fears under a mask of calm assurance as I bade the butcher good-by.

"Mr. Carton," he said, in parting, "if you was a greenhorn that didn't know the difference between a stocker and a springer, like most city men, I'd say to buy your cow off of some other man than John Waydean, but he'll know better than to try to palm off scrub-stock onto you."

This cheerful prediction almost made me perspire with apprehension, particularly as scrub-stock was a brand new variety that he had not mentioned previously. My confidence returned, however, when I stood in John Waydean's barnyard and saw his cows paraded for my inspection, for no two of them were alike, and I could tell at a glance which were Jerseys and which were common cows. I took care not to express a preference until I found out which ones their owner appeared most anxious to sell, and these I instantly decided not to buy. Even had I not been warned by the butcher I would have mistrusted John Waydean, for his face had not the prepossessing appearance of his brother's, and his manner was surly and suspicious. I examined each of the animals with a critical air, ignoring his evident desire to make me believe that an ugly creature resembling a bison was the finest cow, and finally chose a graceful, neat-limbed, fawn-colored Jersey. The reluctance to part with her that I detected in the old man's manner, and the fact of his asking me ten dollars more for her than for any other, confirmed my intuition that I had chosen wisely. I was about to close the bargain when the butcher's words came back to my mind. I looked sharply at the seller. His smooth-shaven face was creased with deep lines about the mouth--a mouth resembling his brother Peter's in its smug rigidity, but whether it concealed regret or triumph I could not determine.

"Mr. Waydean," I said, with stern incisiveness, "is that animal a fresh cow or a stripper?"

His reply had a ring of indignant, scornful reproach. Take her or leave her, he didn't care a blank, but I couldn't run no rig on him by asking such questions. However, since I had mentioned the matter, I'd better come into the stable and see the prettiest week-old calf in the county. He'd sell it for two dollars, and if I raised it on that cow's milk he'd be willing to buy it back in the fall for ten. My lingering doubts were dispelled when I saw the pretty little soft-eyed creature, and I suddenly remembered that a fresh cow is one with a fresh calf. Marion hadn't spoken about getting a calf, but I felt sure that if I suggested it should be made into veal she would insist upon its being kept, then I would have a tangible nucleus toward the realization of my dream of owning a herd of dairy cows. I closed the bargain hurriedly, with the proviso that he was to hitch up his team and deliver my purchases at Waydean. In a few minutes the calf was hoisted into the wagon, bleating dismally. I looked for some demonstration of sympathy from its mother, but she appeared quite unconcerned and would not follow until she had been tied to the rear of the vehicle. I thought this rather peculiar, but the old man explained that she had always showed a great fondness for home and was reluctant to leave. During our drive he was almost as voluble as the butcher had been, discoursing of the iniquities of the man whom he was ashamed to call his brother. "Mr. Carton," he warned me solemnly, "I wouldn't put it past him to come over and run that cow down, he'll be that mad that you knew too much to buy one off of him, but don't you believe a word he says. A man that'd go into court and swear as he done in connection with my late father's property wouldn't stick at nothin'. You watch Pete; if he ain't took you in on the rent, he'll even up in some other way, for it ain't in him to act straight and square like me."

* * * * * * *

"The dear little lovely thing! I do believe it's hungry, Henry. How are you going to feed it?"

I have been asked many questions for which I have been obliged to invent answers, but this was not one of them. I had never owned a calf before, so my ideas on calf-raising were logical and conclusive. The theory that the progeny of a cow should not be allowed to associate with the mother was, I explained, founded upon true scientific laws. A calf brought up on a milk-pail would learn to take its food at stated intervals, escape indigestion, heaves and hollow horn, and grow up into a gentle, courteous and productive adult; while the mother, segregated from an otherwise guzzling, irrational, worrying offspring, would chew her cud in the placid beatitude most essential to the production of the largest quantity of rich milk.

Marion listened silently, with a knowing smile, but when I had finished she remarked that I knew perfectly well that I was talking rubbish, and that the natural way of feeding anything was the right way. Hadn't I better get the soup ladle and her mixing-bowl and teach the calf to sit up properly at the kitchen table while I was about it?

I replied rather hastily, and before I had finished speaking Marion left me and went into the house. I was alone with a calf, a cow, and a guilty conscience; alone at the very time when I most needed help and encouragement. Five minutes before I had looked on my purchases with exultation, while my wife stood in the stable beside me, uttering ecstatic exclamations of delight because I had bought a cow so beautiful to behold and the dearest little calf that I must never mention in connection with veal again; now, in my black despair over this disagreement, I hated the innocent cause of it. If Marion had tried persuasion, I would have been willing to cast my theory to the winds, but I could not brook ridicule and I determined to bring up that calf by hand at whatever cost in time and trouble. I decided to begin at once by learning to milk the cow; after that, I would be in a better position to look up Marion and forgive her for the way I had behaved.

I didn't expect to become an expert milker at once, but I knew from observation how to milk, and I went to work with frantic energy. In a calmer frame of mind I might have waited to tie Ariadne's legs together, they looked so excessively agile; however, she allowed me to exhaust every possible grip and password without protest, also,--alas!--without acknowledgment. When I retreated at last with the empty pail, my dismay was increased by the sideways leaps of joyful anticipation indulged in by the calf in the next stall. Something had to be done to fill up that creature, and I realized with a sense of utter desolation that I was left alone to do it. A word of advice, a protest, tears or angry reprisals, would alike have been sweet to my ears at that moment, but I knew Marion too well to hope that she would come to my help until I implored her forgiveness; even then,--oh, maddening inconsistency!--she would perhaps be plunged in gloom because I had not enough strength of character to stick to my convictions. No, there was but one course for me: I must prove the worth of my theory, if possible; if not, I would at least be in a position to capitulate with the honors of war.

I went into the house and looked up the directions for teaching a calf to drink. I found that you merely seized it by the nostrils with the thumb and little finger, inserting the other three into its mouth as you drew its head gently into the pail of milk. This operation sounded rather objectionable, but I could not afford to be squeamish, and I prepared to smuggle our small supply of milk out of the pantry and add it up with water to make a sufficient bulk. As I passed through the kitchen I glanced furtively at Marion in the faint hope that she might be ready to hold out the olive branch, but when I saw that she did not deign to notice my existence a sudden violent resentment seized me. Instead of surreptitiously abstracting the milk, as I had intended, I poured it into the pail with defiant ostentation; still, I left the kitchen with a sinking heart, for when Marion neglected to ask me what I was going to do with that, I knew that she must indeed be in a serious mood.

I know I followed the directions to the letter up to the point when I drew the calf's head into the pail and inserted my fingers, though much perseverance was needed, for it seemed to be able to travel backwards in all directions at once, faster than I could go forwards; but after that I am not quite sure what happened. I know there was a violent explosion and upheaval,--a blank followed, then I discovered that I was standing in the stable doorway frantically squeezing three of my fingers between my knees to deaden the pain, while the calf stood outside looking at me with an expression of incredulous wonder, its legs sticking out in four different directions like props. I wonder whether it was blown out or carried out; I don't think it walked. I don't think, either, that I lost my presence of mind; if I did, I found it again instantly. Instead of going into the house for liniment, I calmly turned the cow out of the stable also, then I looked on grimly, resigned to non-interference if the calf should happen to bite its parent or the cow kick her offspring.

Ariadne looked around apprehensively when she emerged from the stable; the calf ambled crookedly toward her; she edged away with forward pointed ears; it followed hungrily. She trotted toward the open gate, the calf gamboling in pursuit; suddenly her tail straightened and she broke into a mad gallop,--so did the calf, so also did I. It was in this order we passed the kitchen door where Marion stood calling out to me in wild alarm to run, that the cow had broken loose.

Perhaps it was this cheery information that inspired me to overtake my movable property a mile further down the road, where our butcher, homeward bound, had got off his wagon to turn them back.

"You might be able to milk a cow that _had_ milk," he said with a chuckle, after listening to my tale, "but it'd take Old Nick to raise a calf on a dry one."

"A dry one!" I shouted. "Do you mean"----

"Did the old man tell you it was _this_ cow's calf?" he interrupted.

"Well, no,--I can't remember that he did. He said I'd better take the calf too, and I supposed----"

"Exactly--then he's salted you right enough! You've paid forty dollars for a beef cow that he offered to give me for a twenty dollar account he owes me. I'm sorry--dashed sorry--that you've been took in, but--he, he! ha, ha, ha!--but you let on you knowed all about cattle, and I told you to keep your weather eye----"

"I can stand being swindled," I shouted, in wrath, "but I won't stand any told-you-so business. You ought to have more sense than to talk that way when--when----"

"There, there," he interjected soothingly--"I know jest how you feel. The other day my missis told me I'd smash my hand if I went hammerin' nails with an axe. Well sir, it wasn't three minutes till I did. Of course I swore a bit, but when I went into the kitchen and the missis asked me first how I done it, and then said she knowed I would, I jest went clean out of my head with rage. I'd sooner have gone out and smashed the other thumb than have been spoke to that way."

My heart warmed to the butcher; he is a man of fine feelings. He not only gave me twenty dollars for the cow, but promised to frighten John Waydean into silence by representing that I was preparing evidence for a criminal prosecution.

"And now," I said, in conclusion, "I'd like your candid opinion about the calf. If I decided to raise it, would it be likely to grow into a valuable cow?"

"Well," he answered, gulping in a peculiar, hesitating way, as if he were reluctant to answer, "you mostly can't tell what kind of a cow a calf will make when it's a week old, but if you--if you wanted to raise a _cow_, you--you----"

His face became suffused with a dull purple flush, as if he were struggling with a mighty spasmodic sneeze; he turned his face away, his body shaking convulsively, then with obvious difficulty he continued: "If you wanted to raise a _cow_ you'd ought to have bought a--a--ha, ha, ha!----"

"Have bought _what_?" I cried, in exasperation.

He stopped laughing and looked up and down the road, then leaned over the edge of the wagon-seat with his whip hand shielding one side of his mouth. I hung breathless on his words.

"A--cow--calf," he whispered.

VII

The Advent Of William Wedder

I like to forget unpleasant experiences quickly, particularly mistakes of my own, and to that end I hurried home and told Marion everything. Few husbands, I know, would have done so, but I am not one who lacks the moral courage to do right when I know it will be better for me in the end; nor would I be unwise enough to attempt to conceal the fact that I have faults when I know that it is infinitely wiser to acknowledge them. An error thrust in Marion's way may arouse her compassion, while a good deed, too obviously placed there, may be pushed aside with well-merited contempt. I prefer to let my virtues bloom in seclusion on either side of her path, for her artistic eye delights to spy out the modest flower that hides itself in verdure.

Marion vibrated between laughter and tears as she listened to my tale. Did I try to extenuate my conduct, or gloss over my unspeakable stupidity? No; I castigated myself unsparingly. I anticipated the worst that might be said, and said it with superlative fervor. Only thus could I hope to avert the useless, humiliating process of having my mistakes pointed out in detail; only thus could I evoke the sweet human sympathy I craved, and divert my wife's indignation toward that adroit old swindler, John Waydean. She was visibly affected by my self-accusation, and I began to breathe more freely. She seemed to be in no haste to interrupt with a word of reproach, or to say that she told me so, or to hope the experience would be a lesson to me. I had begun to reflect that, after all, I wasn't a bad sort of fellow and that man was made to err, when suddenly she burst into tears.

"Marion," I cried, aghast, "I'm an idiot, but there's no use crying over----"

"No," she moaned--"no--use."

"It's _my_ fault," I urged, in despair, "but if it were yours, I'm--I'm blamed if I'd cry!"

"It _is_--my fault," she gasped, with a fresh relapse.

In a flash I jumped to the conclusion that she was overcome with remorse for having told the butcher that I knew all about cattle. I saw that it really was her fault, after all, but this was not the time to say so.

"Not at all," I assured her, with soothing generosity. "You must not blame yourself--you didn't realize the awkward position you placed me in."

"No--use," she repeated, unheeding. "To think that--I--should be so--taken in!"

"_You_ taken in?" I cried. "It was I. Who--what--to--oh----"

The words died away in my throat as Marion uncovered her face. Not a word did she say, but her look was insufferable.

"I didn't," I protested hotly; "I never said I knew all about cattle when"----

I stopped, disconcerted by the expressive interrogatory turn to the corners of her mouth. If she had said, in words, that I had convicted myself by my denial, I could have argued the point, but this silent denunciation was distracting. I stared for a moment with uncomprehending hauteur, then strode from the room, trying to make my back view appear like that of a man who might possibly escape being mangled by a train or dying of heart failure until his wife had an opportunity to apologize for her heartless conduct. This device had never failed; it didn't this time. I was reaching for my hat in the hall when Marion called me. I looked back, virtuously impassive, but I could not suppress my joy when I saw in her face, not a sorrowful willingness to forgive me this time, but loving toleration. What mattered forty dollars, or even forty cows, if I might once more be restored to favor?

It was in all sincerity that I assured her that I would profit by my experience, for it did not seem possible that I could ever again meet a cow on terms of mental superiority, and yet, in a few days, time and my elastic temperament had such a mellowing influence that I lost all sensitiveness on the subject; indeed, after pledging the butcher to secrecy, I found myself telling Andy Taylor with the gusto of an onlooker. And later, when we had, through the good offices of the butcher, found a suitable cow that wasn't dry, I became able to appreciate the humor of the situation with quite an impersonal relish. Our new cow was not a graceful animal, like Ariadne, but she was easy to milk and docile, and, as Marion said, Paul could never be impaled on her horns, for she hadn't any.

I would not willingly have missed the pleasure of owning a cow, nor the satisfaction of being able to milk her, but I did not try to disguise from Marion the fact that it was hard work; indeed, the harder I work, the more I like her to be aware of it. Solicitude is cheering to me, so when, at first, she used to stand beside me and express a fear that I might hurt my back or burst a blood-vessel, I worked enthusiastically; but later, when attending to our cow became a part of the inevitable daily routine, and when I milked in solitude, I got very tired and thought morbid thoughts about hired men and other farm accessories that were not.

It is odd that the butcher's aggravating habit of leaving our gate open should have resulted in Marion's suggesting that we should hire William Wedder, the one available man exactly suited to our requirements. Also, I afterwards reminded Marion, if it had not been for what she called my negligence in not removing the gate-semaphore when winter set in, William's observant eye would not have detected anything unusual in the appearance of the place. I recalled, too, that I had several times been prevented from taking down the sign-board by the impossibility of finding the hammer and the wrench at the same time; not only that, but when both tools were to hand I had a strange instinct against making use of them for that purpose. Marion smilingly admitted that it was extraordinary; she suggested that perhaps I was influenced by the same instinct that led me to leave the Venetian shutters on the window frames all winter, instead of taking them off in the fall and putting them on again in the spring. However, I was proud enough of the success of my invention to be content to see the obtrusive request "PLEASE CLOSE THIS GATE" swing uselessly in the wintry winds, while the gate itself stood open, half buried in the snowdrift that formed around it after every storm. If the gate were closed, the request retreated into obscurity behind a post, but when it was opened the board swung across the roadway, so that a person driving in or out would have to duck his head to avoid it. The butcher, for whose especial benefit I had taken all this trouble, regarded the device with gloomy suspicion when I showed him how it worked. Instead of admiring my ingenuity, he insinuated that it would be the means of frightening his horses, so I insisted upon his driving in and out several times until they showed complete unconcern. He appeared depressed by the thought that he could never again pretend that he forgot to close the gate, and although I secretly sympathized with him in his repugnance to taking unnecessary trouble, I was determined to break him off the habit of leaving the gate open.

Thus it happened that William Wedder, tramping along the road with a red bundle swung over his shoulder, against a blustering March wind, spied something that caused him to stop and think, to lay his stick and bundle in the hollow of a snowdrift, smooth out his face to a becoming gravity, and wend his way up to the house.

It was several hours later in the day when I, returning from the city, halted in the same spot and stared in amazement. The semaphore had vanished, the gate, standing open for months, imbedded in several feet of snow and ice, was now closed, a way being neatly cleared for its movement. I opened it and the warning notice shot out over my head, in perfect working order. I walked up to the house, puzzled but gratified, trying to conjecture how and why Marion had prepared this surprise. She opened the door, struggling to conceal her laughter at my countenance.

"How ever did"--I began.

"Hush! Come into the sitting-room," she said mysteriously. "There's a man in the kitchen!"

"A man!" I exclaimed, in agitation. I had warned Marion never to admit a tramp in my absence, and somehow I leaped to the conclusion that she had been imposed upon by a hardened villain. It was a relief to think she was no longer alone.

She nodded. "Not an ordinary tramp," she said. "He's the dearest, funniest little old man, with pink cheeks like a baby's, and so clean looking. When he'd had his dinner"----

"You gave him his dinner?"

"Certainly I did. You don't suppose I sold it to him? Oh, you needn't look so stern; I'll tell you how it happened. I was just taking my pies out of the oven about eleven o'clock when he knocked at the door and said he'd like to borrow a shovel for a few minutes. About half an hour later I remembered he hadn't brought it back, and when I looked out of the front window there was the top of his head bobbing up and down at the gate. I got on my things in a hurry and went out to see what he was doing, and he was scraping the ice so hard with his back turned to me that I had to shout three times before he heard."

"'What's that for?' I called out. 'For you, ma'am,' he answered, turning round with the oddest look. 'For me?' I said. 'Why, I never asked you to dig out our gate.' 'No, ma'am,' he said, 'but when I seen that there sign hung out, I thought to myself that some widow with small children lived here, and it wouldn't be much of a job to dig out her gate. Then when you come to the door I seen I was mistaken, but I thought I'd do it anyway, for it wasn't your fault that you was so young and--and----'"

I smiled.

"No, I didn't pay him," she protested, the becoming flush on her cheeks deepening. "I offered him a quarter, but he wouldn't take it, so I knew he wasn't trying to flatter me, and I made him come up to the house to get some dinner when he got the gate closed. You should have seen his face when the semaphore went behind the gate-post. He was so delighted that he opened and shut the gate several times to see it work, exclaiming, 'My, my! ain't he got a head! Don't that work beautiful!'"

"I suppose you did right to give the poor old chap some dinner," I observed, with a complacent smile.

"When he came into the kitchen," she continued, "he said the smell of hot raspberry pies was the most appetizing smell in the whole world. He said his aunt used to make them when he was a boy, and once he stole a whole one and ate it, and ever since when he tries to feel sorry the remembrance of the delightful sensation in his insides overpowers his conscience and makes him feel glad. Of course I gave him one for dinner, and I told him he might have another if he wished, but he declared that one was enough--that no mortal could stand more than a certain amount of bliss. Just fancy, Henry; he says his aunt's pies weren't a circumstance to mine!"

"The old flatterer!" I exclaimed.

"You didn't say that when he praised your semaphore," cried Marion, with resentment.

I hadn't intended any reflection on the quality of her pies, but it was some little time before she could understand that I really thought them to be infinitely superior to my mother's.

"After dinner," she went on, "he said he wasn't in a hurry, so he'd just cut up some wood and do the stable work until you came home, for he wanted to see you."

My curiosity was aroused, also my suspicions, for my wife's manner was distinctly ingratiating. That might mean either that she had some new project of her own in the background to submit to me, or that she was about to tack off in another direction in regard to one of mine, as she had done in the case of the cow.

"About my semaphore?" I inquired warily.

"So he said," she replied, with a tantalizing laugh. "He wants to--to--handle the county right!"

My heart thumped; my brain seemed to turn a somersault. If Marion had not been swaying to and fro with her handkerchief covering her face as she struggled with her mirth I could not have concealed my exultation. Months before, the success of my device had led me to think of having it patented under the name of "The Eureka Non-Automatic Gate-Closing Attachment," but Marion had nipped my project in the bud. The butcher, too, when I asked his opinion, had chilled my enthusiasm by declaring that if my gate-attachment proved salable in this locality he would move to some other. Of course, that was before he had become expert in keeping his head out of the way of the sign-board, and while he still wore a strip of court plaster on the bridge of his nose.

Now my judgment was vindicated. A man could surely sell one hundred semaphores at five dollars each in one county; ten counties would enable me to buy Waydean; ten more would pay for a train load of implements, as in my day dream of long ago; another ten would stock the farm with domestic animals; tens of hundreds of counties still remained to furnish the means for nebulous philanthropic schemes.

Did I breathe hard, grow flushed or pale with excitement, or do anything to indicate that it was the moment of my triumph? No, I didn't. For one thing, I was sure Marion was keeping something from me; otherwise, why should it seem so funny to her? Until I understood what she meant, I must appear calm, even bored.

"Well," I said, stifling a yawn, "I'll go and send him off. I wouldn't be bothered selling county rights; besides, the semaphore isn't patented."

Marion looked puzzled. "Wait," she said hurriedly, "till I tell----"

"I'll get rid of him first," I said, with determination, "and then you can tell me the rest."

"But he's not to be sent off," she insisted. "Sit down, and I'll tell you everything. He's looking for a place."

"A place!" I exclaimed, beginning to see light. "What has that got to do with us? When I proposed hiring a man you said we couldn't afford to hire more than a quarter or an eighth of a man."

"Exactly. And this old man wants a place where he need work only two or three hours a day. He won't take any wages, but he'd like to have the reading of our books and newspapers. He says he hasn't any use for money as long as he has 'good readin' and nice vittles.'"

I smiled at the persuasive eagerness of her tone. She was evidently bent upon hiring this peculiar old man, but she had expected me to make the proposal so that she could gracefully accede to it. There would be certain advantages, I concluded, accruing to the possession of even the fractional part of a hired man. For instance, I would at once be relieved of the stable work and the milking of Mary Jane. Then spring was coming on, and I would be able to enjoy the luxury of watching him toiling in the vegetable garden under Marion's supervision. Furthermore, my birthday would arrive with the first green grass, and there were indications that I would be presented with a lawn-mower.

"Well, what did you tell him?" I asked, trying to look judicial.

"I said that of course it was a matter for you to decide and I couldn't say anything about it."

I could not repress a gleam of ironical amusement. She was absolutely truthful, yet it was a convention of hers that my word was law, and that I was the autocrat of the household. It was a postulate I dared not dispute.

"Yes, of course," I admitted, in response to her frigid, inquiring glance. "I'll--I'll think it over. In the meantime I'll have a look at him."

"Well, you'd better decide,--that is, I'm quite, quite willing to give the poor old man a trial."

Had I been of a different mind from Marion, I could scarcely have resisted William Wedder's persuasive arguments, and when I had talked with him for a few minutes I did not wonder that she had succumbed to his fascinating eloquence. I knew his praise of my semaphore must be flattery, and yet--I liked it. I felt sure from his manner, his appearance and his conversation that he was merely masquerading as a hired man, but I wanted to see him play the part, although he looked more like a well-to-do retired farmer taking a holiday than a man who needed to travel about looking for work. He did not present credentials, but I ignored the question of references, which seemed quite unnecessary in view of his obvious respectability. He knew how to do farm work, he assured me; he was handy with tools, understood gardening, and could churn and make butter as well as milk the cow. As to terms, he would not take money, but he would be more than satisfied if he had his board and plenty of reading matter. In the slack time in midsummer,--his smooth-shaven jolly face grew solemn as he spoke,--perhaps, if it wouldn't be too much to ask, and if he needed a new suit of clothes, I might let him have just a township right to sell my gate-closer.

I fixed my curious gaze upon his rigid features. I knew instinctively that his earnest solemnity was assumed; I knew by experience that nothing was so effective in baffling any attempt to play off as a steady concentrated stare. His eyes drooped slightly; he studied the names on the drawers of the spice-cabinet attentively; too attentively.

"William," I said, with deliberate, unbending determination, "I have avoided asking you embarrassing questions, but I must know the truth about this semaphore business before I decide whether to engage you or not. What prompted you to dig out my gate?"

I saw a faint flicker of almost contemptuous amusement in his face. "Why," he replied, as if he wondered at my asking such a simple question, "I seen that there notice up, of course."

"I want to know the truth," I repeated slowly, and this time I was almost startled by the perfection with which I imitated Marion's inflexible intonation.

His face assumed a pained and yet forgiving expression, and he regarded the hair broom with intense interest. I waited, as Marion had once waited for me, with the air of being willing to wait until he had time to compute the number of hairs it contained, and I tried to intimate silently that my waiting could have but one result. This specialty of Marion's was more difficult, but I succeeded, for William suddenly laughed and looked me full in the face with engaging candor.

"Well, sir," he said, as if he found a difficulty in making the confession, "I didn't like to say so at first, but I thought--ha, ha!--it'd be a darn good joke on you."

I smiled appreciatively. William had done well; indeed I could not have done better myself, but I recognized a hollowness in his laugh. I waited with silent expectancy, as one of Paul's chickens might wait after receiving a grain of corn from his store.

He paused, looked a little blank, gulped, then with the air of one who reluctantly parts with his last coin, he added: "Besides, I wanted to see how the semaphore worked."

I shook my head, sighed, looked at him pityingly, for I saw the misguided man had persuaded himself it was the truth, and I divined, I know not how, that he was mistaken. I tried to recall what Marion would have said at this juncture, and I said it; indeed, I said it so effectively that I wished Marion had been within earshot. If my voice had not been an octave lower than hers I might have doubted that it was mine.

William's peach-tinted cheeks flushed crimson; he wiped his brow with his red bandanna. "I ain't been cornered like this," he exclaimed, "since my miss--" He checked the utterance with an abrupt cough, and continued in a low soliloquizing tone, "Now I come to think of it, the wind was blowin' pretty fresh and jest when I come opposite the gate I caught a whiff that set me thinkin'."

"A whiff?" I asked, in surprise.

"Hot--raspberry--pies," he explained, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

I was completely satisfied and engaged him on the spot, sending him to milk at once. He had scarcely departed when the door into the dining-room opened and Marion appeared. I saw from her face that she had been listening to the conversation, and that indignation and amusement struggled for mastery.

"You wr-r-etch!" she ejaculated.

I said nothing. I was master of the situation, and I knew it was one of the times when she could imagine more provoking insinuations than I could put into words.

"What are you laughing at?" she cried indignantly.

"I was just thinking--" I began, then I paused dramatically.

"Thinking what?" she demanded.

"That William Wedder is either a married man or a widower."

I had intended her to ask me why, and I had the answer ready, but it was the wrong question she propounded.

"A married man _or_ a widower?" she repeated slowly; then her face became suddenly illumined with appreciative mirth. "Oh, I see! Because it was so hard to get at the _exact_ truth?"

"Ye--es," I faltered.

VIII

Marion Rises To The Occasion

William Wedder, as one-fourth of a hired man, was a distinct success. Not only did he do the ordinary chores that had previously fallen to my lot, but he lightened Marion's household labors by his readiness to churn, wash floors and windows, and to do any other extra work that might have turned her attention from culinary duties. In fact, it soon became apparent that the mainspring of William's energy needed to be kept in working order by a diet that included a liberal supply of raspberry pie or its equivalent, for if the quality or quantity of the dessert were not to his liking his movements became languid and his cheerfulness fled. His own theory, he told me in confidence, was that the dessert compartment of his stomach was so arranged that no amount of plain food would fill it,--he was quite sure that was the case, for the only effect of trying to fill up by substituting plain food for puddings and pies was to make him feel lop-sided.

But if he was costly to feed he paid for his board by the bountiful supply of vegetables he raised, for our little garden flourished amazingly under his care. And if we fancied chickens for dinner, it was no longer necessary for me to steal out with the axe at night after Paul was asleep and rouse a horrid clamor among the innocent victims that I tremblingly clutched by the legs. How William did it we never inquired. Indeed, we preferred to think that he didn't, but if he did, it was done in silence and with decorum, and the chickens which I had taken the precaution not to allow Paul to include in his flock appeared on our kitchen table looking quite as if they had just been bought at the market.

It was during the second summer at Waydean that I noticed the first indication of Marion's longing to own the farm. She began to resent the proximity of Peter's live-stock, when his cattle looked as if they thought of leaping the fence, or when his pigs strayed into the barnyard. Then she began to speculate about the value of the land and how many years it would take us to save enough money to buy it, and if, after all, it would not have been better to have leased the whole farm in the first place, so that we might have had employment for the whole of a hired man. Later, she insinuated that she would feel more confidence in me if I had shown myself to be a masterful man by insisting upon the purchase of a plough to add to our three primitive implements, and when I contended that a plough would have been useless without a horse, she declared that a horse would have been provided if we had needed one, and if we made up our minds to buy the place we would find a means of raising the money. But in this case I was not as sanguine as Marion, for I knew that Peter would hold out for a price far in excess of the value of the property if he knew we thought of buying, and that my present income would only allow us to put away a small sum each year toward the purchase. However, the idea kept working in my mind, though I was careful not to let our landlord know that we coveted his land, concluding that the best way to deal with him, if we ever were able to buy it, would be through a land agent. In the meantime, I had considerable difficulty in keeping the peace between him and my hired man, for they showed such an antipathy to each other that I feared a dispute would arise that might endanger the renewal of my lease. We had all become so fond of the place that I was more than willing to go on paying a high rent, and Peter himself, besides being interesting and entertaining, was still a precious mine of literary material.

Aunt Sophy's interest in Waydean almost equalled our own, and she was enthusiastic in her approbation of our idea of buying the property. She wrote that had I resembled her late husband in temperament she would have advised Marion differently, but considering the wonderful talent I had shown for not buying implements, and my sensible ideas about poultry-raising, she was sure I could be trusted to manage any amount of land economically.

Poor Aunt Sophy! She had been ill during the spring, and had delayed her second visit until she would feel stronger; then a few days before we expected her she telegraphed that she would be unable to leave home and asked Marion to go to her at once, if possible. When this direful message arrived we both felt at the same instant that it meant the end of dear Aunt Sophy. But in addition to the sorrow that welled up in me, the appalling thought seized me that it was now too late to atone for having allowed her to cherish the innocent belief that the fowls she had helped us to eat were of our own raising. I could no longer hope that the memory of the vicarious chickens of last summer would be eclipsed by her enjoyment of the real home-made ones we had meant to lavish on her