Longfellow, old man, Longfellow. Bet you a dollar on it!" And the frivolous Yates poked the professor in the ribs.

"Richard," said the latter, "I can stand only a certain amount of this sort of thing. I don't wish to call any man a fool, but you act remarkably like one."

"Don't be mealy-mouthed, Renny; call a spade a spade. By George! young Hiram has gone off and forgotten his—And the ax, too! Perhaps they're left for us. He's a good fellow, is young Hiram. A fool? Of course I'm a fool. That's what I came for, and that's what I'm going to be for the next two weeks. 'A fool—a fool, I met a fool i' the forest'—just the spot for him. Who could be wise here after years of brick and mortar?

"Where are your eyes, Renny," he cried, "that you don't grow wild when you look around you? See the dappled sunlight filtering through the leaves; listen to the murmur of the wind in the branches; hear the trickle of the brook down there; notice the smooth bark of the beech and the rugged covering of the oak; smell the wholesome woodland scents. Renmark, you have no soul, or you could not be so unmoved. It is like paradise. It is—Say, Renny, by Jove, I've forgotten that jug at the barn!"

"It will be left there."

"Will it? Oh, well, if you say so."

"I do say so. I looked around for it this morning to smash it, but couldn't find it."

"Why didn't you ask old Bartlett?"

"I did; but he didn't know where it was."

Yates threw himself down on the moss and laughed, flinging his arms and legs about with the joy of living.

"Say, Culture, have you got any old disreputable clothes with you? Well, then, go into the tent and put them on; then come out and lie on your back and look up at the leaves. You're a good fellow, Renny, but decent clothes spoil you. You won't know yourself when you get ancient duds on your back. Old clothes mean freedom, liberty, all that our ancestors fought for. When you come out, we'll settle who's to cook and who to wash dishes. I've settled it already in my own mind, but I am not so selfish as to refuse to discuss the matter with you."

When the professor came out of the tent, Yates roared. Renmark himself smiled; he knew the effect would appeal to Yates.

"By Jove! old man, I ought to have included a mirror in the outfit. The look of learned respectability, set off with the garments of a disreputable tramp, makes a combination that is simply killing. Well, you can't spoil that suit, anyhow. Now sprawl."

"I'm very comfortable standing up, thank you."

"Get down on your back. You hear me?"

"Put me there."

"You mean it?" asked Yates, sitting up.

"Certainly."

"Say, Renny, beware. I don't want to hurt you."

"I'll forgive you for once."

"On your head be it."

"On my back, you mean."

"That's not bad, Renny," cried Yates, springing to his feet. "Now, it will hurt. You have fair warning. I have spoken."

The young men took sparring attitudes. Yates tried to do it gently at first, but, finding he could not touch his opponent, struck out more earnestly, again giving a friendly warning. This went on ineffectually for some time, when the professor, with a quick movement, swung around his foot with the airy grace of a dancing master, and caught Yates just behind the knee, at the same time giving him a slight tap on the breast. Yates was instantly on his back.

"Oh, I say, Renny, that wasn't fair. That was a kick."

"No, it wasn't. It is merely a little French touch. I learned it in Paris. They do kick there, you know; and it is good to know how to use your feet as well as your fists if you are set on by three, as I was one night in the Latin Quarter."

Yates sat up.

"Look here, Renmark; when were you in Paris?"

"Several times."

Yates gazed at him for a few moments, then said:

"Renny, you improve on acquaintance. I never saw a Bool-var in my life. You must teach me that little kick."

"With pleasure," said Renmark, sitting down, while the other sprawled at full length. "Teaching is my business, and I shall be glad to exercise any talents I may have in that line. In endeavoring to instruct a New York man the first step is to convince him that he doesn't know everything. That is the difficult point. Afterward everything is easy."

"Mr. Stillson Renmark, you are pleased to be severe. Know that you are forgiven. This delicious sylvan retreat does not lend itself to acrimonious dispute, or, in plain English, quarreling. Let dogs delight, if they want to; I refuse to be goaded by your querulous nature into giving anything but the soft answer. Now to business. Nothing is so conducive to friendship, when two people are camping out, as a definition of the duties of each at the beginning. Do you follow me?"

"Perfectly. What do you propose?"

"I propose that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes. We will forage for food alternate days."

"Very well. I agree to that."

Richard Yates sat suddenly upright, looking at his friend with reproach in his eyes. "See here, Renmark; are you resolved to force on an international complication the very first day? That's no fair show to give a man."

"What isn't?"

"Why, agreeing with him. There are depths of meanness in your character, Renny, that I never suspected. You know that people who camp out always object to the part assigned them by their fellow-campers. I counted on that. I'll do anything but wash dishes."

"Then why didn't you say so?"

"Because any sane man would have said 'no' when I suggested cooking, merely because I suggested it. There is no diplomacy about you, Renmark. A man doesn't know where to find you when you act like that. When you refused to do the cooking, I would have said: 'Very well, then, I'll do it,' and everything would have been lovely; but now——"

Yates lay down again in disgust. There are moments in life when language fails a man.

"Then it's settled that you do the cooking and I wash the dishes?" said the professor.

"Settled? Oh yes, if you say so; but all the pleasure of getting one's own way by the use of one's brains is gone. I hate to be agreed with in that objectionably civil manner."

"Well, that point being arranged, who begins the foraging—you or I?"

"Both, Herr Professor, both. I propose to go to the house of the Howards, and I need an excuse for the first visit; therefore I shall forage to a limited extent. I go ostensibly for bread. As I may not get any, you perhaps should bring some from whatever farmhouse you choose as the scene of your operations. Bread is always handy in the camp, fresh or stale. When in doubt, buy more bread. You can never go wrong, and the bread won't."

"What else should I get? Milk, I suppose?"

"Certainly; eggs, butter—anything. Mrs. Bartlett will give you hints on what to get that will be more valuable than mine."

"Have you all the cooking utensils you need?"

"I think so. The villain from whom I hired the outfit said it was complete. Doubtless he lied; but we'll manage, I think."

"Very well. If you wait until I change my clothes, I'll go with you as far as the road."

"My dear fellow, be advised, and don't change. You'll get everything twenty per cent. cheaper in that rig-out. Besides, you are so much more picturesque. Your costume may save us from starvation if we run short of cash. You can get enough for both of us as a professional tramp. Oh, well, if you insist, I'll wait. Good advice is thrown away on a man like you."



CHAPTER VI.

Margaret Howard stood at the kitchen table kneading dough. The room was called the kitchen, which it was not, except in winter. The stove was moved out in spring to a lean-to, easily reached through the open door leading to the kitchen veranda.

When the stove went out or came in, it marked the approach or the departure of summer. It was the heavy pendulum whose swing this way or that indicated the two great changes of the year. No job about the farm was so much disliked by the farmer and his boys as the semiannual removal of the stove. Soot came down, stovepipes gratingly grudged to go together again; the stove was heavy and cumbersome, and many a pain in a rural back dated from the journey of the stove from outhouse to kitchen.

The kitchen itself was a one-story building, which projected back from the two-story farmhouse, giving the whole a T-shape. There was a veranda on each side of the kitchen, as well as one along the front of the house itself.

Margaret's sleeves were turned back nearly to her elbows, showing a pair of white and shapely arms. Now and then she deftly dusted the kneading board with flour to prevent the dough sticking, and as she pressed her open palms into the smooth, white, spongy mass, the table groaned protestingly. She cut the roll with a knife into lumps that were patted into shape, and placed side by side, like hillocks of snow, in the sheet-iron pan.

At this moment there was a rap at the open kitchen door, and Margaret turned round, startled, for visitors were rare at that hour of the day; besides, neighbors seldom made such a concession to formality as to knock. The young girl flushed as she recognized the man who had spoken to her the day before. He stood smiling in the doorway, with his hat in his hand. She uttered no word of greeting or welcome, but stood looking at him, with her hand on the floury table.

"Good-morning, Miss Howard," said Yates blithely; "may I come in? I have been knocking for some time fruitlessly at the front door, so I took the liberty of coming around."

"I did not hear you knock," answered Margaret. She neglected to invite him in, but he took the permission for granted and entered, seating himself as one who had come to stay. "You must excuse me for going on with my work," she added; "bread at this stage will not wait."

"Certainly, certainly. Please do not let me interrupt you. I have made my own bread for years, but not in that way. I am glad that you are making bread, for I have come to see if I can buy some."

"Really? Perhaps I can sell you some butter and eggs as well."

Yates laughed in that joyous, free-hearted manner of his which had much to do with his getting on in the world. It was difficult to remain long angry with so buoyant a nature.

"Ah, Miss Howard, I see you haven't forgiven me for that remark. You surely could not have thought I meant it. I really intended it for a joke, but I am willing to admit, now that I look back on it, that the joke was rather poor; but, then, most of my jokes are rather shopworn."

"I am afraid I lack a sense of humor."

"All women do," said Yates with easy confidence. "At least, all I've ever met."

Yates was sitting in a wooden chair, which he now placed at the end of the table, tilting it back until his shoulders rested against the wall. His feet were upon the rung, and he waved his hat back and forth, fanning himself, for it was warm. In this position he could look up at the face of the pretty girl before him, whose smooth brow was touched with just the slightest indication of a faint frown. She did not even glance at the self-confident young man, but kept her eyes fixed resolutely on her work. In the silence the table creaked as Margaret kneaded the dough. Yates felt an unaccustomed sensation of embarrassment creeping over him, and realized that he would have to re-erect the conversation on a new basis. It was manifestly absurd that a resourceful New Yorker, who had conversed unabashed with presidents, senators, generals, and other great people of a great nation, should be put out of countenance by the unaccountable coldness of a country girl in the wilds of Canada.

"I have not had an opportunity of properly introducing myself," he said at last, when the creaking of the table, slight as it was, became insupportable. "My name is Richard Yates, and I come from New York. I am camping out in this neighborhood to relieve, as it were, a mental strain—the result of years of literary work."

Yates knew from long experience that the quickest and surest road to a woman's confidence was through her sympathy. "Mental strain" struck him as a good phrase, indicating midnight oil and the hollow eye of the devoted student.

"Is your work mental, then?" asked Margaret incredulously, flashing, for the first time, a dark-eyed look at him.

"Yes," Yates laughed uneasily. He had manifestly missed fire. "I notice by your tone that you evidently think my equipment meager. You should not judge by appearances, Miss Howard. Most of us are better than we seem, pessimists to the contrary notwithstanding. Well, as I was saying, the camping company consists of two partners. We are so different in every respect that we are the best of friends. My partner is Mr. Stillson Renmark, professor of something or other in University College, Toronto."

For the first time Margaret exhibited some interest in the conversation.

"Professor Renmark? I have heard of him."

"Dear me! I had no idea the fame of the professor had penetrated beyond the precincts of the university—if a university has precincts. He told me it had all the modern improvements, but I suspected at the time that was merely Renny's brag."

The frown on the girl's brow deepened, and Yates was quick to see that he had lost ground again, if, indeed, he had ever gained any, which he began to doubt. She evidently did not relish his glib talk about the university. He was just about to say something deferentially about that institution, for he was not a man who would speak disrespectfully of the equator if he thought he might curry favor with his auditor by doing otherwise, when it occurred to him that Miss Howard's interest was centered in the man, and not in the university.

"In this world, Miss Howard," he continued, "true merit rarely finds its reward; at least, the reward shows some reluctance in making itself visible in time for man to enjoy it. Professor Renmark is a man so worthy that I was rather astonished to learn that you knew of him. I am glad for his sake that it is so, for no man more thoroughly deserves fame than he."

"I know nothing of him," said Margaret, "except what my brother has written. My brother is a student at the university."

"Is he really? And what is he going in for?"

"A good education."

Yates laughed.

"Well, that is an all-round handy thing for a person to have about him. I often wish I had had a university training. Still, it is not valued in an American newspaper office as much as might be. Yet," he added in a tone that showed he did not desire to be unfair to a man of education, "I have known some university men who became passably good reporters in time."

The girl made no answer, but attended strictly to the work in hand. She had the rare gift of silence, and these intervals of quiet abashed Yates, whose most frequent boast was that he could outtalk any man on earth. Opposition, or even abuse, merely served as a spur to his volubility, but taciturnity disconcerted him.

"Well," he cried at length, with something like desperation, "let us abandon this animated discussion on the subject of education, and take up the more practical topic of bread. Would you believe, Miss Howard, that I am an expert in bread making?"

"I think you said already that you made your bread."

"Ah, yes, but I meant then that I made it by the sweat of my good lead pencil. Still, I have made bread in my time, and I believe that some of those who subsisted upon it are alive to-day. The endurance of the human frame is something marvelous, when you come to think of it. I did the baking in a lumber camp one winter. Used to dump the contents of a sack of flour into a trough made out of a log, pour in a pail or two of melted snow, and mix with a hoe after the manner of a bricklayer's assistant making mortar. There was nothing small or mean about my bread making. I was in the wholesale trade."

"I pity the unfortunate lumbermen."

"Your sympathy is entirely misplaced, Miss Howard. You ought to pity me for having to pander to such appetites as those men brought in from the woods with them. They never complained of the quality of the bread, although there was occasionally some grumbling about the quantity. I have fed sheaves to a threshing machine and logs to a sawmill, but their voracity was nothing to that of a big lumberman just in from felling trees. Enough, and plenty of it, is what he wants. No 'tabbledote' for him. He wants it all at once, and he wants it right away. If there is any washing necessary, he is content to do it after the meal. I know nothing, except a morning paper, that has such an appetite for miscellaneous stuff as the man of the woods."

The girl made no remark, but Yates could see that she was interested in his talk in spite of herself. The bread was now in the pans, and she had drawn out the table to the middle of the floor; the baking board had disappeared, and the surface of the table was cleaned. With a light, deft motion of her two hands she had whisked over its surface the spotlessly white cloth, which flowed in waves over the table and finally settled calmly in its place like the placid face of a pond in the moonlight. Yates realized that the way to success lay in keeping the conversation in his own hands and not depending on any response. In this way a man may best display the store of knowledge he possesses, to the admiration and bewilderment of his audience, even though his store consists merely of samples like the outfit of a commercial traveler; yet a commercial traveler who knows his business can so arrange his samples on the table of his room in a hotel that they give the onlooker an idea of the vastness and wealth of the warehouses from which they are drawn.

"Bread," said Yates with the serious air of a very learned man, "is a most interesting subject. It is a historical subject—it is a biblical subject. As an article of food it is mentioned oftener in the Bible than any other. It is used in parable and to point a moral. 'Ye must not live on bread alone.'"

From the suspicion of a twinkle in the eye of his listener he feared he had not quoted correctly. He knew he was not now among that portion of his samples with which he was most familiar, so he hastened back to the historical aspect of his subject. Few people could skate over thinner ice than Richard Yates, but his natural shrewdness always caused him to return to more solid footing.

"Now, in this country bread has gone through three distinct stages, and although I am a strong believer in progress, yet, in the case of our most important article of food, I hold that the bread of to-day is inferior to the bread our mothers used to make, or perhaps, I should say, our grandmothers. This is, unfortunately, rapidly becoming the age of machinery—and machinery, while it may be quicker, is certainly not so thorough as old-fashioned hand work. There is a new writer in England named Ruskin who is very bitter against machinery. He would like to see it abolished—at least, so he says. I will send for one of his books, and show it to you, if you will let me."

"You, in New York, surely do not call the author of 'Modern Painters' and 'The Seven Lamps of Architecture' a new man. My father has one of his books which must be nearly twenty years old."

This was the longest speech Margaret had made to him, and, as he said afterward to the professor in describing its effects, it took him right off his feet. He admitted to the professor, but not to the girl, that he had never read a word of Ruskin in his life. The allusion he had made to him he had heard someone else use, and he had worked it into an article before now with telling effect. "As Mr. Ruskin says" looked well in a newspaper column, giving an air of erudition and research to it. Mr. Yates, however, was not at the present moment prepared to enter into a discussion on either the age or the merits of the English writer.

"Ah, well," he said, "technically speaking, of course, Ruskin is not a new man. What I meant was that he is looked on—ah—in New York as— that is—you know—as comparatively new—comparatively new. But, as I was saying about bread, the old log-house era of bread, as I might call it, produced the most delicious loaf ever made in this country. It was the salt-rising kind, and was baked in a round, flat-bottomed iron kettle. Did you ever see the baking kettle of other days?"

"I think Mrs. Bartlett has one, although she never uses it now. It was placed on the hot embers, was it not?"

"Exactly," said Yates, noting with pleasure that the girl was thawing, as he expressed it to himself. "The hot coals were drawn out and the kettle placed upon them. When the lid was in position, hot coals were put on he top of it. The bread was firm and white and sweet inside, with the most delicious golden brown crust all around. Ah, that was bread! but perhaps I appreciated it because I was always hungry in those days. Then came the alleged improvement of the tin Dutch oven. That was the second stage in the evolution of bread in this country. It also belonged to the log-house and open-fireplace era. Bread baked by direct heat from the fire and reflected heat from the polished tin. I think our present cast-iron stove arrangement is preferable to that, although not up to the old-time kettle."

If Margaret had been a reader of the New York Argus, she would have noticed that the facts set forth by her visitor had already appeared in that paper, much elaborated, in an article entitled "Our Daily Bread." In the pause that ensued after Yates had finished his dissertation on the staff of life the stillness was broken by a long wailing cry. It began with one continued, sustained note, and ended with a wail half a tone below the first. The girl paid no attention to it, but Yates started to his feet.

"In the name of—What's that?"

Margaret smiled, but before she could answer the stillness was again broken by what appeared to be the more distant notes of a bugle.

"The first," she said, "was Kitty Bartlett's voice calling the men home from the field for dinner. Mrs. Bartlett is a very good housekeeper and is usually a few minutes ahead of the neighbors with the meals. The second was the sound of a horn farther up the road. It is what you would deplore as the age of tin applied to the dinner call, just as your tin oven supplanted the better bread maker. I like Kitty's call much better than the tin horn. It seems to me more musical, although it appeared to startle you."

"Oh, you can talk!" cried Yates with audacious admiration, at which the girl colored slightly and seemed to retire within herself again. "And you can make fun of people's historical lore, too. Which do you use— the tin horn or the natural voice?"

"Neither. If you will look outside, you will see a flag at the top of a pole. That is our signal."

It flashed across the mind of Yates that this was intended as an intimation that he might see many things outside to interest him. He felt that his visit had not been at all the brilliant success he had anticipated. Of course the quest for bread had been merely an excuse. He had expected to be able to efface the unfavorable impression he knew he had made by his jaunty conversation on the Ridge Road the day before, and he realized that his position was still the same. A good deal of Yates' success in life came from the fact that he never knew when he was beaten. He did not admit defeat now, but he saw he had, for some reason, not gained any advantage in a preliminary skirmish. He concluded it would be well to retire in good order, and renew the contest at some future time. He was so unused to anything like a rebuff that all his fighting qualities were up in arms, and he resolved to show this unimpressionable girl that he was not a man to be lightly valued.

As he rose the door from the main portion of the house opened, and there entered a woman hardly yet past middle age, who had once been undoubtedly handsome, but on whose worn and faded face was the look of patient weariness which so often is the result of a youth spent in helping a husband to overcome the stumpy stubbornness of an American bush farm. When the farm is conquered, the victor is usually vanquished. It needed no second glance to see that she was the mother from whom the daughter had inherited her good looks. Mrs. Howard did not appear surprised to see a stranger standing there; in fact, the faculty of being surprised at anything seemed to have left her. Margaret introduced them quietly, and went about her preparation for the meal. Yates greeted Mrs. Howard with effusion. He had come, he said, on a bread mission. He thought he knew something about bread, but he now learned he came too early in the day. He hoped he might have the privilege of repeating his visit.

"But you are not going now?" said Mrs. Howard with hospitable anxiety.

"I fear I have already stayed too long," answered Yates lingeringly. "My partner, Professor Renmark, is also on a foraging expedition at your neighbors', the Bartletts. He is doubtless back in camp long ago, and will be expecting me."

"No fear of that. Mrs. Bartlett would never let anyone go when there is a meal on the way."

"I am afraid I shall be giving extra trouble by staying. I imagine there is quite enough to do in every farmhouse without entertaining any chance tramp who happens along. Don't you agree with me for once, Miss Howard?"

Yates was reluctant to go, and yet he did not wish to stay unless Margaret added her invitation to her mother's. He felt vaguely that his reluctance did him credit, and that he was improving. He could not remember a time when he had not taken without question whatever the gods sent, and this unaccustomed qualm of modesty caused him to suspect that there were depths in his nature hitherto unexplored. It always flatters a man to realize that he is deeper than he thought.

Mrs. Howard laughed in a subdued manner because Yates likened himself to a tramp, and Margaret said coldly:

"Mother's motto is that one more or less never makes any difference."

"And what is your motto, Miss Howard?"

"I don't think Margaret has any," said Mrs. Howard, answering for her daughter. "She is like her father. She reads a great deal and doesn't talk much. He would read all the time, if he did not have to work. I see Margaret has already invited you, for she has put an extra plate on the table."

"Ah, then," said Yates, "I shall have much pleasure in accepting both the verbal and the crockery invitation. I am sorry for the professor at his lonely meal by the tent; for he is a martyr to duty, and I feel sure Mrs. Bartlett will not be able to keep him."

Before Mrs. Howard could reply there floated in to them, from the outside, where Margaret was, a cheery voice which Yates had no difficulty in recognizing as belonging to Miss Kitty Bartlett.

"Hello, Margaret!" she said. "Is he here?"

The reply was inaudible.

"Oh, you know whom I mean. That conceited city fellow."

There was evidently an admonition and a warning.

"Well, I don't care if he does. I'll tell him so to his face. It might do him good."

Next moment there appeared a pretty vision in the doorway. On the fair curls, which were flying about her shoulders, had been carelessly placed her brother's straw hat, with a broad and torn brim. Her face was flushed with running; and of the fact that she was a very lovely girl there was not the slightest doubt.

"How de do?" she said to Mrs. Howard, and, nodding to Yates, cried: "I knew you were here, but I came over to make sure. There's going to be war in our house. Mother's made a prisoner of the professor already, but he doesn't know it. He thinks he's going back to the tent, and she's packing up the things he wanted, and doing it awfully slow, till I get back. He said you would be sure to be waiting for him out in the woods. We both told him there was no fear of that. You wouldn't leave a place where there was good cooking for all the professors in the world."

"You are a wonderful judge of character, Miss Bartlett," said Yates, somewhat piqued by her frankness.

"Of course I am. The professor knows ever so much more than you, but he doesn't know when he's well off, just the same. You do. He's a quiet, stubborn man."

"And which do you admire the most, Miss Bartlett—a quiet, stubborn man, or one who is conceited?"

Miss Kitty laughed heartily, without the slightest trace of embarrassment. "Detest, you mean. I'm sure I don't know. Margaret, which is the most objectionable?"

Margaret looked reproachfully at her neighbor on being thus suddenly questioned, but said nothing.

Kitty, laughing again, sprang toward her friend, dabbed a little kiss, like the peck of a bird, on each cheek, cried: "Well, I must be off, or mother will have to tie up the professor to keep him," and was off accordingly with the speed and lightness of a young fawn.

"Extraordinary girl," remarked Yates, as the flutter of curls and calico dress disappeared.

"She is a good girl," cried Margaret emphatically.

"Bless me, I said nothing to the contrary. But don't you think she is somewhat free with her opinions about other people?" asked Yates.

"She did not know that you were within hearing when she first spoke, and after that she brazened it out. That's her way. But she's a kind girl and good-hearted, otherwise she would not have taken the trouble to come over here merely because your friend happened to be surly."

"Oh, Renny is anything but surly," said Yates, as quick to defend his friend as she was to stand up for hers. "As I was saying a moment ago, he is a martyr to duty, and if he thought I was at the camp, nothing would keep him. Now he will have a good dinner in peace when he knows I am not waiting for him, and a good dinner is more than he will get when I take to the cooking."

By this time the silent signal on the flagpole had done its work, and Margaret's father and brother arrived from the field. They put their broad straw hats on the roof of the kitchen veranda, and, taking water in a tin basin from the rain barrel, placed it on a bench outside and proceeded to wash vigorously.

Mr. Howard was much more interested in his guest than his daughter had apparently been. Yates talked glibly, as he could always do if he had a sympathetic audience, and he showed an easy familiarity with the great people of this earth that was fascinating to a man who had read much of them, but who was, in a measure, locked out of the bustling world. Yates knew many of the generals in the late war, and all of the politicians. Of the latter there was not an honest man among them, according to the reporter; of the former there were few who had not made the most ghastly mistakes. He looked on the world as a vast hoard of commonplace people, wherein the men of real genius were buried out of sight, if there were any men of genius, which he seemed to doubt, and those on the top were there either through their own intrigues or because they had been forced up by circumstances. His opinions sometimes caused a look of pain to cross the face of the older man, who was enthusiastic in his quiet way, and had his heroes. He would have been a strong Republican if he had lived in the States; and he had watched the four-years' struggle, through the papers, with keen and absorbed interest. The North had been fighting, in his opinion, for the great and undying principle of human liberty, and had deservedly won. Yates had no such delusion. It was a politicians' war, he said. Principle wasn't in it. The North would have been quite willing to let slavery stand if the situation had not been forced by the firing on Fort Sumter. Then the conduct of the war did not at all meet the approval of Mr. Yates.

"Oh, yes," he said, "I suppose Grant will go down into history as a great general. The truth is that he simply knew how to subtract. That is all there is in it. He had the additional boon of an utter lack of imagination. We had many generals who were greater than Grant, but they were troubled with imaginations. Imagination will ruin the best general in the world. Now, take yourself, for example. If you were to kill a man unintentionally, your conscience would trouble you all the rest of your life. Think how you would feel, then, if you were to cause the death of ten thousand men all in a lump. It would break you down. The mistake an ordinary man makes may result in the loss of a few dollars, which can be replaced; but if a general makes a mistake, the loss can never be made up, for his mistakes are estimated by the lives of men. He says 'Go' when he should have said 'Come.' He says 'Attack' when he should have said 'Retreat.' What is the result? Five, ten, or fifteen thousand men, many of them better men than he is, left dead on the field. Grant had nothing of this feeling. He simply knew how to subtract, as I said before. It is like this: You have fifty thousand men and I have twenty-five thousand. When I kill twenty-five thousand of your men and you kill twenty-five thousand of my men, you have twenty-five thousand left and I have none. You are the victor, and the thoughtless crowd howls about you, but that does not make you out the greatest general by a long shot. If Lee had had Grant's number, and Grant had Lee's, the result would have been reversed. Grant set himself to do this little sum in subtraction, and he did it—did it probably as quickly as any other man would have done it, and he knew that when it was done the war would have to stop. That's all there was to it."

The older man shook his head. "I doubt," he said, "if history will take your view either of the motives of those in power or of the way the war was carried on. It was a great and noble struggle, heroically fought by those deluded people who were in the wrong, and stubbornly contested at immense self-sacrifice by those who were in the right."

"What a pity it was," said young Howard to the newspaper man, with a rudeness that drew a frown from his father, "that you didn't get to show 'em how to carry on the war."

"Well," said Yates, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, "I flatter myself that I would have given them some valuable pointers. Still, it is too late to bemoan their neglect now."

"Oh, you may have a chance yet," continued the unabashed young man. "They say the Fenians are coming over here this time sure. You ought to volunteer either on our side or on theirs, and show how a war ought to be carried on."

"Oh, there's nothing in the Fenian scare! They won't venture over. They fight with their mouths. It's the safest way."

"I believe you," said the youth significantly.

Perhaps it was because the boy had been so inconsiderate as to make these remarks that Yates received a cordial invitation from both Mr. and Mrs. Howard to visit the farm as often as he cared to do so. Of this privilege Yates resolved to avail himself, but he would have prized it more if Miss Margaret had added her word—which she did not, perhaps because she was so busy looking after the bread. Yates knew, however, that with a woman apparent progress is rarely synonymous with real progress. This knowledge soothed his disappointment.

As he walked back to the camp he reviewed his own feelings with something like astonishment. The march of events was rapid even for him, who was not slow in anything he undertook.

"It is the result of leisure," he said to himself. "It is the first breathing time I have had for fifteen years. Not two days of my vacation gone, and here I am hopelessly in love!"



CHAPTER VII.

Yates had intended to call at the Bartletts' and escort Renmark back to the woods; but when he got outside he forgot the existence of the professor, and wandered somewhat aimlessly up the side road, switching at the weeds that always grow in great profusion along the ditches of a Canadian country thoroughfare. The day was sunny and warm, and as Yates wandered on in the direction of the forest he thought of many things. He had feared that he would find life deadly dull so far from New York, without even the consolation of a morning-paper, the feverish reading of which had become a sort of vice with him, like smoking. He had imagined that he could not exist without his morning paper, but he now realized that it was not nearly so important a factor in life as he had supposed; yet he sighed when he thought of it, and wished he had one with him of current date. He could now, for the first time in many years, read a paper without that vague fear which always possessed him when he took up an opposition sheet, still damp from the press. Before he could enjoy it his habit was to scan it over rapidly to see if it contained any item of news which he himself had missed the previous day. The impending "scoop" hangs over the head of the newspaper man like the sword so often quoted. Great as the joy of beating the opposition press is, it never takes the poignancy of the sting away from a beating received. If a terrible disaster took place, and another paper gave fuller particulars than the Argus did, Yates found himself almost wishing the accident had not occurred, although he recognized such a wish as decidedly unprofessional.

Richard's idea of the correct spirit in a reporter was exemplified by an old broken-down, out-of-work morning newspaper man, who had not long before committed suicide at an hour in the day too late for the evening papers to get the sensational item. He had sent in to the paper for which he formerly worked a full account of the fatality, accurately headed and sub-headed; and, in his note to the city editor, he told why he had chosen the hour of 7 P.M. as the time for his departure from an unappreciative world.

"Ah, well," said Yates under his breath, and suddenly pulling himself together, "I mustn't think of New York if I intend to stay here for a couple of weeks. I'll be city-sick the first thing I know, and then I'll make a break for the metropolis. This will never do. The air here is enchanting, it fills a man with new life. This is the spot for me, and I'll stick to it till I'm right again. Hang New York! But I mustn't think of Broadway or I'm done for."

He came to the spot in the road where he could see the white side of the tent under the dark trees, and climbed up on the rail fence, sitting there for a few moments. The occasional call of a quail from a neighboring field was the only sound that broke the intense stillness. The warm smell of spring was in the air. The buds had but recently broken, and the woods, intensely green, had a look of newness and freshness that was comforting to the eye and grateful to the other senses. The world seemed to be but lately made. The young man breathed deeply of the vivifying air, and said: "No, there's nothing the matter with this place, Dick. New York's a fool to it." Then, with a sigh, he added: "If I can stand it for two weeks. I wonder how the boys are getting on without me."

In spite of himself his thoughts kept drifting back to the great city, although he told himself that it wouldn't do. He gazed at the peaceful, spreading landscape, but his eyes were vacant and he saw nothing. The roar of the streets was in his ears. Suddenly his reverie was broken by a voice from the forest.

"I say, Yates, where's the bread?"

Yates looked quickly around, somewhat startled, and saw the professor coming toward him.

"The bread? I forgot all about it. No; I didn't either. They were baking—that was it. I am to go for it later in the day. What loot did you rake in, professor?"

"Vegetables mostly."

"That's all right. Have a good dinner?"

"Excellent."

"So did I. Renny, when you interrupted me, I was just counting the farmhouses in sight. What do you say to boarding round among them? You are a schoolmaster, and ought to know all about it. Isn't education in this country encouraged by paying the teacher as little as possible, and letting him take it out in eating his way from one house to another? Ever board around, Renny?"

"Never. If the custom once existed in Canada, it is out of date now."

"That's a pity. I hate to face my own cooking, Renmark. We become less brave as we grow older. By the way, how is old man Bartlett? As well as could be expected?"

"He seemed much as usual. Mrs. Bartlett has sent out two chairs to the tent; she fears we will get rheumatism if we sit on the ground."

"She is a kind woman, Renny, and a thoughtful. And that reminds me: I have a hammock somewhere among my belongings. I will swing it up. Chairs are comfortable, but a hammock is luxury."

Yates slid down from the fence top, and together the two men walked to the tent. The hammock was unfurled and slung between two trees. Yates tested it cautiously, and finally trusted himself to its restful folds of network. He was swaying indolently several feet from the ground when he said to Renmark:

"I call this paradise—paradise regained; but it will be paradise lost next month. Now, professor, I am ready to do the cooking, but I have a fancy for doing it by proxy. The general directs, and the useful prosaic man executes. Where are your vegetables, Renny? Potatoes and carrots, eh? Very good. Now, you may wash them, Renny; but first you must bring some water from the spring."

The professor was a patient man, and he obeyed. Yates continued to swing in the hammock alternating directions with rhapsodies on the beauties of the day and the stillness of the woods. Renmark said but little, and attended strictly to the business in hand. The vegetables finished, he took a book from his valise, tilted a chair back against a tree, and began to read.

"I'm depending upon you for the bread," he said to the drowsy man in the hammock.

"Right you are, Renny. Your confidence is not misplaced. I shall presently journey down into the realms of civilization, and fill the long-felt want. I shall go to the Howards by way of the Bartlett homestead, but I warn you that if there is a meal on, at either place, you will not have me here to test your first efforts at cooking. So you may have to wait until breakfast for my opinion."

Yates extricated himself slowly and reluctantly from the hammock, and looked regretfully at it when he stood once more on the ground.

"This mad struggle for bread, professor, is the curse of life here below. It is what we are all after. If it were not for the necessity of bread and clothing, what a good time a fellow might have. Well, my blessing, Renny. Good-by."

Yates strolled slowly through the woods, until he came to the beginning of a lane which led to the Bartlett homestead. He saw the farmer and his son at work in the back fields. From between the distant house and barn there arose, straight up into the still air, a blue column of smoke, which, reaching a certain height, spread out like a thin, hazy cloud above the dwelling. At first Yates thought that some of the outhouses were on fire, and he quickened his pace to a run; but a moment's reflection showed him that the column was plainly visible to the workers in the fields, and that if anything were wrong they would not continue placidly at their labor. When he had walked the long length of the lane, and had safely rounded the corner of the barn, he saw, in the open space between that building and the house, a huge camp fire blazing. From a pole, upheld by two crotched supports, hung a big iron kettle over the flames. The caldron was full nearly to the brim, and the steam was already beginning to rise from its surface, although the fire had evidently been but recently kindled. The smoke was not now so voluminous, but Kitty Bartlett stood there with a big-brimmed straw hat in her hands, fanning it away from her face, while the hat at the same time protected her rosy countenance from the fire. She plainly was not prepared to receive visitors, and she started when the young man addressed her, flushing still more deeply, apparently annoyed at his unwelcome appearance.

"Good-afternoon," he said cordially. "Preparing for washing? I thought Monday was washing day."

"It is."

"Then I have not been misinformed. And you are not preparing for washing?"

"We are."

Yates laughed so heartily that Kitty, in spite of herself, had to permit a smile to brighten her own features. She always found it difficult remain solemn for any length of time.

"This is obviously a conundrum," said Yates, ticking off the items on his four fingers. "First, Monday is washing day. Second, this is not Monday. Third, neither is to-morrow. Fourth, we are preparing for washing. I give it up, Miss Bartlett. Please tell me the answer."

"The answer is that I am making soap; soft soap, if you know what that is."

"Practically, I don't know what it is; but I have heard the term used in a political connection. In the States we say that if a man is very diplomatic he uses soft soap, so I suppose it has lubricating qualities. Sam Slick used the term 'soft sawder' in the same way; but what sawder is, soft or hard, I haven't the slightest idea."

"I thought you knew everything, Mr. Yates."

"Me? Bless you, no. I'm a humble gleaner in the field of knowledge. That's why I brought a Toronto professor with me. I want to learn something. Won't you teach me how to make soap?"

"I'm very busy just now. When I said that we were preparing for washing, I should perhaps have told you there was something else we are not prepared for to-day."

"What is that?"

"A visitor."

"Oh, I say, Miss Bartlett, you are a little hard on me. I'm not a visitor. I'm a friend of the family. I want to help. You will find me a most diligent student. Won't you give me a chance?"

"All the hard work's done. But perhaps you knew that before you came."

Yates looked at her reproachfully, and sighed deeply.

"That's what it is to be a misunderstood man. So you think, among other bad qualities, I have the habit of shirking work? Let me tell you, Miss Bartlett, that the reason I am here is because I have worked too hard. Now, confess that you are sorry for what you said—trampling on an already downtrodden man."

Kitty laughed merrily at this, and Yates laughed also, for his sense of comradeship was strong.

"You don't look as if you had ever worked in your life; I don't believe you know what work is."

"But there are different kinds of labor. Don't you call writing work?"

"No."

"That's just where you're mistaken. It is, and hard work, too. I'll tell you about the newspaper business if you'll tell me about soap making. Fair exchange. I wish you would take me as a pupil, Miss Bartlett; you would find me quick at picking up things."

"Well, then, pick up that pail and draw a pailful of water."

"I'll do it," cried Yates sternly; "I'll do it, though it blast me."

Yates picked up the wooden pail, painted blue on the outside, with a red stripe near the top for ornament, and cream-colored inside. It was called a "patent pail" in those days, as it was a comparatively recent innovation, being cheaper, lighter, and stronger than the tin pail which it was rapidly replacing. At the well was a stout pole, pinned through the center to the upright support on which it swung, like the walking-beam of an engine. The thick end, which rested on the ground, was loaded with heavy stones; while from the thin end, high in the air, there dangled over the mouth of the well a slim pole with a hook. This hook was ingeniously furnished with a spring of hickory, which snapped when the handle of the pail was placed on the hook, and prevented the "patent" utensil from slipping off when it was lowered to the surface of the water. Yates speedily recognized the usefulness of this contrivance, for he found that the filling of a wooden pail in a deep well was not the simple affair it looked. The bucket bobbed about on the surface of the water. Once he forgot the necessity of keeping a stout grip on the pole, and the next instant the pail came up to the sunlight with a suddenness that was terrifying. Only an equally sudden backward jump on Yates' part saved his head. Miss Bartlett was pleased to look upon this incident as funny. Yates was so startled by the unexpected revolt of the pail that his native courtesy did not get a chance to prevent Kitty from drawing up the water herself. She lowered the vessel, pulling down the pole in a hand-over-hand manner that the young man thought decidedly fetching, and then she gave an almost imperceptible twist to the arrangement that resulted in instant success. The next thing Yates knew the full pail was resting on the well curb, and the hickory spring had given the click that released the handle.

"There," said Kitty, suppressing her merriment, "that's how it's done."

"I see the result, Miss Bartlett; but I'm not sure I can do the trick. These things are not so simple as they seem. What is the next step?"

"Pour the water into the leach."

"Into the what?"

"Into the leach, I said. Where else?"

"Oh, I'm up a tree again. I see I don't even know the A B C of this business. In the old days the leech was a physician. You don't mean I'm to drown a doctor?"

"This is the leach," said Kitty, pointing to a large, yellowish, upright wooden cylinder, which rested on some slanting boards, down the surface of which ran a brownish liquid that dripped into a trough.

As Yates stood on a bench with the pail in his hand he saw that the cylinder was filled nearly to the top with sodden wood ashes. He poured in the water, and it sank quickly out of sight.

"So this is part of the soap-making equipment?" he said, stepping down; "I thought the iron kettle over the fire was the whole factory. Tell me about the leach."

"That is where the hard work of soap making comes in," said Kitty, stirring the contents of the iron kettle with a long stick. "Keeping the leach supplied with water at first is no fun, for then the ashes are dry. If you put in five more pails of water, I will tell you about it."

"Right!" cried Yates, pleased to see that the girl's evident objection to his presence at first was fast disappearing. "Now you'll understand how energetic I am. I'm a handy man about a place."

When he had completed his task, she was still stirring the thickening liquid in the caldron, guarding her face from the fire with her big straw hat. Her clustering, tangled fair hair was down about her shoulders; and Yates, as he put the pail in its place, when it had been emptied the fifth time, thought she formed a very pretty picture standing there by the fire, even if she were making soft soap.

"The wicked genii has finished the task set him by the fairy princess. Now for the reward. I want all the particulars about the leach. In the first place, where do you get this huge wooden cylinder that I have, without apparent effect, been pouring water into? Is it manufactured or natural?"

"Both. It is a section of the buttonwood tree."

"Buttonwood? I don't think I ever heard of that. I know the beech and the maple, and some kinds of oak, but there my wood lore ends. Why the buttonwood?"

"The buttonwood happens to be exactly suited to the purpose. It is a tree that is very fine to look at. It seems all right, but it generally isn't. It is hollow or rotten within, and, even when sound, the timber made from it is of little value, as it doesn't last. Yet you can't tell until you begin to chop whether it is of any use or not." Kitty shot a quick glance at the young man, who was sitting on a log watching her.

"Go on, Miss Bartlett; I see what you mean. There are men like the buttonwood tree. The woods are full of them. I've met lots of that kind, fair to look upon, but hollow. Of course you don't mean anything personal; for you must have seen my worth by the way I stuck to the water hauling. But go on."

"Dear me, I never thought of such a thing; but a guilty conscience, they say——" said Kitty, with a giggle.

"Of course they say; but it's wrong, like most other things they say. It's the man with the guilty conscience who looks you straight in the eye. Now that the buttonwood is chopped down, what's the next thing to be done?"

"It is sawn off at the proper length, square at one end and slanting at the other."

"Why slanting?"

"Don't you see, the foundation of plank on which it rests is inclined, so the end of the leach that is down must be slantingly cut, otherwise it would not stand perpendicularly. It would topple over in the first windstorm."

"I see, I see. Then they haul it in and set it up?"

"Oh, dear no; not yet. They build a fire in it when it gets dry enough."

"Really? I think I understand the comprehensive scheme, but I slip up on the details, as when I tried to submerge that wooden pail. What's the fire for?"

"To burn out what remains of the soft inside wood, so as to leave only the hard outside shell. Then the charring of the inner surface is supposed to make the leach better—more water-tight, perhaps."

"Quite so. Then it is hauled in and set up?"

"Yes; and gradually filled with ashes. When it is full, we pour the water in it, and catch the lye as it drips out. This is put in the caldron with grease, pigskins, and that sort of thing, and when it boils long enough, the result is soft soap."

"And if you boil it too long, what is the result?"

"Hard soap, I suppose. I never boil it too long."

The conversation was here interrupted by a hissing in the fire, caused by the tumultuous boiling over of the soap. Kitty hurriedly threw in a basin of cold lye, and stirred the mixture vigorously.

"You see," she said reproachfully, "the result of keeping me talking nonsense to you. Now you will have to make up for it by bringing in some wood and putting more water into the leach."

"With the utmost pleasure," cried Yates, springing to his feet. "It is a delight to atone for a fault by obeying your commands."

The girl laughed. "Buttonwood," she said. Before Yates could think of anything to say in reply Mrs. Bartlett appeared at the back door.

"How is the soap getting on, Kitty?" she asked. "Why, Mr. Yates, are you here?"

"Am I here? I should say I was. Very much here. I'm the hired man. I'm the hewer of wood and the hauler of water, or, to speak more correctly, I'm the hauler of both. And, besides, I've been learning how to make soap, Mrs. Bartlett."

"Well, it won't hurt you to know how."

"You bet it won't. When I get back to New York, the first thing I shall do will be to chop down a buttonwood tree in the park, if I can find one, and set up a leach for myself. Lye comes useful in running a paper."

Mrs. Bartlett's eyes twinkled, for, although she did not quite understand his nonsense, she knew it was nonsense, and she had a liking for frivolous persons, her own husband being so somber-minded.

"Tea is ready," she said. "Of course you will stay, Mr. Yates."

"Really, Mrs. Bartlett, I cannot conscientiously do so. I haven't earned a meal since the last one. No; my conscience won't let me accept, but thank you all the same."

"Nonsense; my conscience won't let you go away hungry. If nobody were to eat but those who earn their victuals, there would be more starving people in the world than there are. Of course you'll stay."

"Now, that's what I like, Mrs. Bartlett. I like to have a chance of refusing an invitation I yearn for, and then be forced to accept. That's true hospitality." Then in a whisper he added to Kitty; "If you dare to say 'buttonwood,' Miss Bartlett, you and I will quarrel."

But Kitty said nothing, now that her mother had appeared on the scene, but industriously stirred the contents of the iron kettle.

"Kitty," said the mother, "you call the men to supper."

"I can't leave this," said Kitty, flushing; "it will boil over. You call, mother."

So Mrs. Bartlett held her open palms on each side of her mouth, and gave the long wailing cry, which was faintly answered from the fields, and Yates, who knew a thing or two, noted with secret satisfaction that Kitty had refused doubtless because he was there.



CHAPTER VIII.

"I tell you what it is, Renny," said Yates, a few days after the soap episode, as he swung in his hammock at the camp, "I'm learning something new every day."

"Not really?" asked the professor in surprise.

"Yes, really. I knew it would astonish you. My chief pleasure in life, professor, is the surprising of you. I sometimes wonder why it delights me; it is so easily done."

"Never mind about that. What have you been learning?"

"Wisdom, my boy; wisdom in solid chunks. In the first place, I am learning to admire the resourcefulness of these people around us. Practically, they make everything they need. They are the most self- helping people that I was ever thrown among. I look upon theirs as the ideal life."

"I think you said something like that when we first came here."

"I said that, you ass, about camping out. I am talking now about farm life. Farmers eliminate the middleman pretty effectually, and that in itself is going a long way toward complete happiness. Take the making of soap, that I told you about; there you have it, cheap and good. When you've made it, you know what is in it, and I'll be hanged if you do when you pay a big price for it in New York. Here they make pretty nearly everything they need, except the wagon and the crockery; and I'm not sure but they made them a few years back. Now, when a man with a good sharp ax and a jack-knife can do anything from building his house to whittling out a chair, he's the most independent man on earth. Nobody lives better than these people do. Everything is fresh, sweet, and good. Perhaps the country air helps; but it seems to me I never tasted such meals as Mrs. Bartlett, for instance, gets up. They buy nothing at the stores except the tea, and I confess I prefer milk myself. My tastes were always simple."

"And what is the deduction?"

"Why, that this is the proper way to live. Old Hiram has an anvil and an amateur forge. He can tinker up almost anything, and that eliminates the blacksmith. Howard has a bench, saws, hammers, and other tools, and that eliminates the carpenter. The women eliminate the baker, the soap boiler, and a lot of other parasites. Now, when you have eliminated all the middlemen, then comes independence, and consequently complete happiness. You can't keep happiness away with a shotgun then."

"But what is to become of the blacksmith, the carpenter, and all the rest?"

"Let them take up land and be happy too; there's plenty of land. The land is waiting for them. Then look how the master is eliminated. That's the most beautiful riddance of all. Even the carpenter and blacksmith usually have to work under a boss; and if not, they have to depend on the men who employ them. The farmer has to please nobody but himself. That adds to his independence. That's why old Hiram is ready to fight the first comer on the slightest provocation. He doesn't care whom he offends, so long as it isn't his wife. These people know how to make what they want, and what they can't make they do without. That's the way to form a great nation. You raise, in this way, a self- sustaining, resolute, unconquerable people. The reason the North conquered the South was because we drew our armies mostly from the self-reliant farming class, while we had to fight a people accustomed for generations to having things done for them."

"Why don't you buy a farm, Yates?"

"Several reasons. I am spoiled for the life here. I am like the drunkard who admires a temperate life, yet can't pass a ginshop. The city virus is in my blood. And then, perhaps, after all, I am not quite satisfied with the tendency of farm life; it is unfortunately in a transition state. It is at the frame-house stage, and will soon blossom into the red-brick stage. The log-house era is what I yearn for. Then everything a person needed was made on the farm. When the brick-house era sets in, the middleman will be rampant. I saw the other day at the Howards' a set of ancient stones that interested me as much as an Assyrian marble would interest you. They were old, home-made millstones, and they have not been used since the frame house was built. The grist mill at the village put them out of date. And just here, notice the subtlety of the crafty middleman. The farmer takes his grist to the mill, and the miller does not charge him cash for grinding it. He takes toll out of the bags, and the farmer has a vague idea that he gets his grinding for almost nothing. The old way was the best, Renny, my boy. The farmer's son won't be as happy in the brick house which the mason will build for him as his grandfather was in the log house he built for himself. And fools call this change the advance of civilization."

"There is something to be said for the old order of things," admitted Renmark. "If a person could unite the advantages of what we call civilization with the advantages of a pastoral life, he would inaugurate a condition of things that would be truly idyllic."

"That's so, Renmark, that's so!" cried Yates enthusiastically. "A brownstone mansion on Fifth Avenue, and a log hut on the shores of Lake Superior! That would suit me down to the ground. Spend half the year in each place."

"Yes," said the professor meditatively; "a log hut on the rocks and under the trees, with the lake in front, would be very nice if the hut had a good library attached."

"And a daily paper. Don't forget the press."

"No. I draw the line there. The daily paper would mean the daily steamer or the daily train. The one would frighten away the fish, and the other would disturb the stillness with its whistle."

Yates sighed. "I forgot about the drawbacks," he said. "That's the trouble with civilization. You can't have the things you want without bringing in their trail so many things you don't want. I shall have to give up the daily paper."

"Then there is another objection, worse than either steamer or train."

"What's that?"

"The daily paper itself."

Yates sat up indignantly.

"Renmark!" he cried, "that's blasphemy. For Heaven's sake, man, hold something sacred. If you don't respect the press, what do you respect? Not my most cherished feelings, at any rate, or you wouldn't talk in that flippant manner. If you speak kindly of my daily paper, I'll tolerate your library."

"And that reminds me: Have you brought any books with you, Yates? I have gone through most of mine already, although many of them will bear going over again; still, I have so much time on my hands that I think I may indulge in a little general reading. When you wrote asking me to meet you in Buffalo, I thought you perhaps intended to tramp through the country, so I did not bring as many books with me as I should have done if I had known you were going to camp out."

Yates sprang from the hammock.

"Books? Well, I should say so! Perhaps you think I don't read anything but the daily papers. I'd have you know that I am something of a reader myself. You mustn't imagine you monopolize all the culture in the township, professor."

The young man went into the tent, and shortly returned with an armful of yellow-covered, paper-bound small volumes, which he flung in profusion at the feet of the man from Toronto. They were mostly Beadle's Dime Novels, which had a great sale at the time.

"There," he said, "you have quantity, quality, and variety, as I have before remarked. 'The Murderous Sioux of Kalamazoo;' that's a good one. A hair-raising Indian story in every sense of the word. The one you are looking at is a pirate story, judging by the burning ship on the cover. But for first-class highwaymen yarns, this other edition is the best. That's the 'Sixteen String Jack set.' They're immense, if they do cost a quarter each. You must begin at the right volume, or you'll be sorry. You see, they never really end, although every volume is supposed to be complete in itself. They leave off at the most exciting point, and are continued in the next volume. I call that a pretty good idea, but it's rather exasperating if you begin at the last book. You'll enjoy this lot. I'm glad I brought them along."

"It is a blessing," said Renmark, with the ghost of a smile about his lips. "I can truthfully say that they are entirely new to me."

"That's all right, my boy," cried Yates loftily, with a wave of his hand. "Use them as if they were your own."

Renmark arose leisurely and picked up a quantity of the books.

"These will do excellently for lighting our morning camp fire," he said. "And if you will allow me to treat them as if they were my own, that is the use to which I will put them. You surely do not mean to say that you read such trash as this, Yates?"

"Trash?" exclaimed Yates indignantly. "It serves me right. That's what a man gets for being decent to you, Renny. Well, you're not compelled to read them; but if you put one of them in the fire, your stupid treatises will follow, if they are not too solid to burn. You don't know good literature when you see it."

The professor, buoyed up, perhaps, by the conceit which comes to a man through the possession of a real sheepskin diploma, granted by a university of good standing, did not think it necessary to defend his literary taste. He busied himself in pruning a stick he had cut in the forest, and finally he got it into the semblance of a walking cane. He was an athletic man, and the indolence of camp life did not suit him as it did Yates. He tested the stick in various ways when he had trimmed it to his satisfaction.

"Are you ready for a ten-mile walk?" he asked of the man in the hammock.

"Good gracious, no. Man wants but little walking here below, and he doesn't want it ten miles in length either. I'm easily satisfied. You're off, are you? Well, so long. And I say, Renny, bring back some bread when you return to camp. It's the one safe thing to do."



CHAPTER IX.

Renmark walked through the woods and then across the fields, until he came to the road. He avoided the habitations of man as much as he could, for he was neither so sociably inclined nor so frequently hungry as was his companion. He strode along the road, not caring much where it led him. Everyone he met gave him "Good-day," after the friendly custom of the country. Those with wagons or lighter vehicles going in his direction usually offered him a ride, and went on, wondering that a man should choose to walk when it was not compulsory. The professor, like most silent men, found himself good company, and did not feel the need of companionship in his walks. He had felt relieved rather than disappointed when Yates refused to accompany him. And Yates, swinging drowsily in his hammock, was no less gratified. Even where men are firm and intimate friends, the first few days of camping out together is a severe strain on their regard for each other. If Damon and Pythias had occupied a tent together for a week, the worst enemy of either, or both, might at the end of that time have ventured into the camp in safety, and would have been welcome.

Renmark thought of these things as he walked along. His few days' intimacy with Yates had shown him how far apart they had managed to get by following paths that diverged more and more widely the farther they were trodden. The friendship of their youth had turned out to be merely ephemeral. Neither would now choose the other as an intimate associate. Another illusion had gone.

"I have surely enough self-control," said Renmark to himself, as he walked on, "to stand his shallow flippancy for another week, and not let him see what I think of him."

Yates at the same time was thoroughly enjoying the peaceful silence of the camp. "That man is an exaggerated schoolmaster, with all the faults of the species abnormally developed. If I once open out on him, he will learn more truth about himself in ten minutes than he ever heard in his life before. What an unbearable prig he has grown to be." Thus ran Yates' thoughts as he swung in his hammock, looking up at the ceiling of green leaves.

Nevertheless, the case was not so bad as either of them thought. If it had been, then were marriage not only a failure, but a practical impossibility. If two men can get over the first few days in camp without a quarrel, life becomes easier, and the tension relaxes.

Renmark, as he polished off his ten miles, paid little heed to those he met; but one driver drew up his horse and accosted him.

"Good-day," he said. "How are you getting on in the tent?"

The professor was surprised at the question. Had their tenting-out eccentricity gone all over the country? He was not a quick man at recognizing people, belonging, as he did, to the "I-remember-your-face- but-can't-recall-your-name" fraternity. It had been said of him that he never, at any one time, knew the names of more than half a dozen students in his class; but this was an undergraduate libel on him. The young man who had accosted him was driving a single horse, attached to what he termed a "democrat"—a four-wheeled light wagon, not so slim and elegant as a buggy, nor so heavy and clumsy as a wagon. Renmark looked up at the driver with confused unrecognition, troubled because he vaguely felt that he had met him somewhere before. But his surprise at being addressed speedily changed into amazement as he looked from the driver to the load. The "democrat" was heaped with books. The larger volumes were stuck along the sides with some regularity, and in this way kept the miscellaneous pile from being shaken out on the road. His eye glittered with a new interest as it rested on the many-colored bindings; and he recognized in the pile the peculiar brown covers of the "Bohn" edition of classic translations, that were scattered like so many turnips over the top of this ridge of literature. He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was not dreaming. How came a farmer's boy to be driving a wagon load of books in the wilds of the country as nonchalantly as if they were so many bushels of potatoes?

The young driver, who had stopped his horse, for the load was heavy and the sand was deep, saw that the stranger not only did not recognize him, but that from the moment he saw the books he had forgotten everything else. It was evidently necessary to speak again.

"If you are coming back, will you have a ride?" he asked.

"I—I think I will," said the professor, descending to earth again and climbing up beside the boy.

"I see you don't remember me," said the latter, starting his horse again. "My name is Howard. I passed you in my buggy when you were coming in with your tent that day on the Ridge. Your partner—what's his name—Yates, isn't it?—had dinner at our house the other day."

"Ah, yes. I recollect you now. I thought I had seen you before; but it was only for a moment, you know. I have a very poor memory so far as people are concerned. It has always been a failing of mine. Are these your books? And how do you happen to have such a quantity?"

"Oh, this is the library," said young Howard.

"The library?"

"Yes, the township library, you know."

"Oh! The township has a library, then? I didn't know."

"Well, it's part of it. This is a fifth part. You know about township libraries, don't you? Your partner said you were a college man."

Renmark blushed at his own ignorance, but he was never reluctant to admit it.

"I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but I know nothing of township libraries. Please, tell me about them."

Young Howard was eager to give information to a college man, especially on the subject of books, which he regarded as belonging to the province of college-bred men. He was pleased also to discover that city people did not know everything. He had long had the idea that they did, and this belief had been annoyingly corroborated by the cocksureness of Yates. The professor evidently was a decent fellow, who did not pretend to universal knowledge. This was encouraging. He liked Renmark better than Yates, and was glad he had offered him a ride, although, of course, that was the custom; still, a person with one horse and a heavy load is exempt on a sandy road.

"Well, you see," he said in explanation, "it's like this: The township votes a sum of money, say a hundred dollars, or two hundred, as the case may be. They give notice to the Government of the amount voted, and the Government adds the same amount to the township money. It's like the old game: you think of a number, and they double it. The Government has a depository of books, in Toronto, I think, and they sell them cheaper than the bookstores do. At any rate, the four hundred dollars' worth are bought, or whatever the amount is, and the books are the property of the township. Five persons are picked out in the township as librarians, and they have to give security. My father is librarian for this section. The library is divided into five parts, and each librarian gets a share. Once a year I go to the next section and get all their books. They go to the next section, again, and get all the books at that place. A man comes to our house to-day and takes all we have. So we get a complete change every year, and in five years we get back the first batch, which by that time we have forgotten all about. To-day is changing day all around."

"And the books are lent to any person in each section who wishes to read them?" asked the professor.

"Yes. Margaret keeps a record, and a person can have a book out for two weeks; after that time there is a fine, but Margaret never fines anyone."

"And do people have to pay to take out the books?"

"Not likely!" said Howard with fine contempt. "You wouldn't expect people to pay for reading books; would you, now?"

"No, I suppose not. And who selected the volumes?"

"Well, the township can select the books if it likes, or it can send a committee to select them; but they didn't think it worth the trouble and expense. People grumbled enough at wasting money on books as it was, even if they did buy them at half price. Still, others said it was a pity not to get the money out of the Government when they had the chance. I don't believe any of them cared very much about the books, except father and a few others. So the Government chose the books. They'll do that if you leave it to them. And a queer lot of trash they sent, if you take my word for it. I believe they shoved off on us all the things no on else would buy. Even when they did pick out novels, they were just as tough as the history books. 'Adam Bede' is one. They say that's a novel. I tried it, but I would rather read the history of Josephus any day. There's some fighting in that, if it is a history. Then there's any amount of biography books. They're no good. There's a 'History of Napoleon.' Old Bartlett's got that, and he won't give it up. He says he was taxed for the library against his will. He dares them to go to law about it, and it aint worth while for one book. The other sections are all asking for that book; not that they want it, but the whole country knows that old Bartlett's a-holding on to it, so they'd like to see some fun. Bartlett's read that book fourteen times, and it's all he knows. I tell Margaret she ought to fine him, and keep on fining, but she won't do it. I guess Bartlett thinks the book belongs to him by this time. Margaret likes Kitty and Mrs. Bartlett,— so does everybody,—but old Bartlett's a seed. There he sits now on his veranda, and it's a wonder he's not reading the 'History of Napoleon.'"

They were passing the Bartlett house, and young Howard raised his voice and called out:

"I say, Mr. Bartlett, we want that Napoleon book. This is changing day, you know. Shall I come up for it, or will you bring it down? If you fetch it to the gate, I'll cart it home now."

The old man paid no heed to what was said to him; but Mrs. Bartlett, attracted by the outcry, came to the door.

"You go along with your books, you young rascal!" she cried, coming down to the gate when she saw the professor. "That's a nice way to carry bound books, as if they were a lot of bricks. I'll warrant you have lost a dozen between Mallory's and here. But easy come, easy go. It's plain to be seen they didn't cost you anything. I don't know what the world's a-coming to when the township spends its money in books, as if taxes weren't heavy enough already. Won't you come in, Mr. Renmark? Tea's on the table."

"Mr. Renmark's coming with me this trip, Mrs. Bartlett," young Howard said before the professor had time to reply; "but I'll come over and take tea, if you'll invite me, as soon as I have put the horse up."

"You go along with your nonsense," she said; "I know you." Then in a lower voice she asked: "How is your mother, Henry—and Margaret?"

"They're pretty well, thanks."

"Tell them I'm going to run over to see them some day soon, but that need not keep them from coming to see me. The old man's going to town to-morrow," and with this hint, after again inviting the professor to a meal, she departed up the path to the house.

"I think I'll get down here," said Renmark, halfway between the two houses. "I am very much obliged to you for the ride, and also for what you told me about the books. It was very interesting."

"Nonsense!" cried young Howard; "I'm not going to let you do anything of the sort. You're coming home with me. You want to see the books, don't you? Very well, then, come along, Margaret is always impatient on changing day, she's so anxious to see the books, and father generally comes in early from the fields for the same reason."

As they approached the Howard homestead they noticed Margaret waiting for them at the gate; but when the girl saw that a stranger was in the wagon, she turned and walked into the house. Renmark, seeing this retreat, regretted he had not accepted Mrs. Bartlett's invitation. He was a sensitive man, and did not realize that others were sometimes as shy as himself. He felt he was intruding, and that at a sacred moment— the moment of the arrival of the library. He was such a lover of books, and valued so highly the privilege of being alone with them, that he fancied he saw in the abrupt departure of Margaret the same feeling of resentment he would himself have experienced if a visitor had encroached upon him in his favorite nook in the fine room that held the library of the university.

When the wagon stopped in the lane, Renmark said hesitatingly:

"I think I'll not stay, if you don't mind. My friend is waiting for me at the camp, and will be wondering what has become of me."

"Who? Yates? Let him wonder. I guess he never bothers about anybody else as long as he is comfortable himself. That's how I sized him up, at any rate. Besides, you're never going back on carrying in the books, are you? I counted on your help. I don't want to do it, and it don't seem the square thing to let Margaret do it all alone; does it, now?"

"Oh, if I can be of any assistance, I shall——"

"Of course you can. Besides, I know my father wants to see you, anyhow. Don't you, father?"

The old man was coming round from the back of the house to meet them.

"Don't I what?" he asked.

"You said you wanted to see Professor Renmark when Margaret told you what Yates had said to her about him."

Renmark reddened slightly at finding so many people had made him the subject of conversation, rather suspecting at the same time that the boy was making fun of him. Mr. Howard cordially held out his hand.

"So this is Professor Renmark, is it? I am very pleased to see you. Yes, as Henry was saying, I have been wanting to see you ever since my daughter spoke of you. I suppose Henry told you that his brother is a pupil of yours?"

"Oh! is Arthur Howard your son?" cried Renmark, warming up at once. "I did not know it. There are many young men at the college, and I have but the vaguest idea from what parts of the country they all come. A teacher should have no favorites, but I must confess to a strong liking for your son. He is a good boy, which cannot be said about every member of my class."

"Arthur was always studious, so we thought we would give him a chance. I am glad to hear he behaves himself in the city. Farming is hard work, and I hope my boys will have an easier time than I had. But come in, come in. The missus and Margaret will be glad to see you, and hear how the boy is coming on with his studies."

So they went in together.



CHAPTER X.

"Hello! Hello, there! Wake up! Breakfa-a-a-st! I thought that would fetch you. Gosh! I wish I had your job at a dollar a day!"

Yates rubbed his eyes, and sat up in the hammock. At first he thought the forest was tumbling down about his ears, but as he collected his wits he saw that it was only young Bartlett who had come crashing through the woods on the back of one horse, while he led another by a strap attached to a halter. The echo of his hearty yell still resounded in the depths of the woods, and rang in Yates' ears as he pulled himself together.

"Did you—ah—make any remarks?" asked Yates quietly.

The boy admired his gift of never showing surprise.

"I say, don't you know that it's not healthy to go to sleep in the middle of the day?"

"Is it the middle of the day? I thought it was later. I guess I can stand it, if the middle of the day can. I've a strong constitution. Now, what do you mean by dashing up on two horses into a man's bedroom in that reckless fashion?"

The boy laughed.

"I thought perhaps you would like a ride. I knew you were alone, for I saw the professor go mooning up the road a little while ago."

"Oh! Where was he going?"

"Hanged if I know, and he didn't look as if he knew himself. He's a queer fish, aint he?"

"He is. Everybody can't be as sensible and handsome as we are, you know. Where are you going with those horses, young man?"

"To get them shod. Won't you come along? You can ride the horse I'm on. It's got a bridle. I'll ride the one with the halter."

"How far away is the blacksmith's shop?"

"Oh, a couple of miles or so; down at the Cross Roads."

"Well," said Yates, "there's merit in the idea. I take it your generous offer is made in good faith, and not necessarily for publication."

"I don't understand. What do you mean?"

"There is no concealed joke, is there? No getting me on the back of one of those brutes to make a public exhibition of me? Do they bite or kick or buck, or playfully roll over a person?"

"No," cried, young Bartlett indignantly. "This is no circus. Why, a baby could ride this horse."

"Well, that's about the style of horse I prefer. You see, I'm a trifle out of practice. I never rode anything more spirited than a street car, and I haven't been on one of them for a week."

"Oh, you can ride all right. I guess you could do most things you set your mind to."

Yates was flattered by this evidently sincere tribute to his capacity, so he got out of the hammock. The boy, who had been sitting on the horse with both feet on one side, now straightened his back and slipped to the ground.

"Wait till I throw down the fence," he said.

Yates mounted with some difficulty, and the two went trotting down the road. He managed to hold his place with some little uncertainty, but the joggling up and down worried him. He never seemed to alight in quite the same place on the horse's back, and this gave an element of chance to his position which embarrassed him. He expected to come down some time and find the horse wasn't there. The boy laughed at his riding, but Yates was too much engaged in keeping his position to mind that very much.

"D-d-dirt is s-s-said to b-b-be matter out of place, and that's what's the m-m-mat-matter w-w-with me." His conversation seemed to be shaken out of him by the trotting of the horse. "I say, Bartlett, I can't stand this any longer. I'd rather walk."

"You're all right," said the boy; "we'll make him canter."

He struck the horse over the flank with the loose end of the halter rein.

"Here!" shouted Yates, letting go the bridle and grasping the mane. "Don't make him go faster, you young fiend. I'll murder you when I get off—and that will be soon."

"You're all right," repeated young Bartlett, and, much to his astonishment, Yates found it to be so. When the horse broke into a canter, Yates thought the motion as easy as swinging in a hammock, and as soothing as a rocking chair.

"This is an improvement. But we've got to keep it up, for if this brute suddenly changes to a trot, I'm done for."

"We'll keep it up until we come in sight of the Corners, then we'll slow down to a walk. There's sure to be a lot of fellows at the blacksmith's shop, so we'll come in on them easy like."

"You're a good fellow, Bartlett," said Yates. "I suspected you of tricks at first. I'm afraid, if I had got another chap in such a fix, I wouldn't have let him off as easily as you have me. The temptation would have been too great."

When they reached the blacksmith's shop at the Corners, they found four horses in the building ahead of them. Bartlett tied his team outside, and then, with his comrade, entered the wide doorway of the smithy. The shop was built of rough boards, and the inside was blackened with soot. It was not well lighted, the two windows being obscured with much smoke, so that they were useless as far as their original purpose was concerned; but the doorway, as wide as that of a barn, allowed all the light to come in that the smith needed for his work. At the far end and darkest corner of the place stood the forge, with the large bellows behind it, concealed, for the most part, by the chimney. The forge was perhaps six feet square and three or four feet high, built of plank and filled in with earth. The top was covered with cinders and coal, while in the center glowed the red core of the fire, with blue flames hovering over it. The man who worked the bellows chewed tobacco, and now and then projected the juice with deadly accuracy right into the center of the fire, where it made a momentary hiss and dark spot. All the frequenters of the smithy admired Sandy's skill in expectoration, and many tried in vain to emulate it. The envious said it was due to the peculiar formation of his front teeth, the upper row being prominent, and the two middle teeth set far apart, as if one were missing. But this was jealousy; Sandy's perfection in the art was due to no favoritism of nature, but to constant and long-continued practice. Occasionally with his callous right hand, never removing his left from the lever, Sandy pulled an iron bar out of the fire and examined it critically. The incandescent end of the bar radiated a blinding white light when it was gently withdrawn, and illuminated the man's head, making his beardless face look, against its dark background, like the smudged countenance of some cynical demon glowing with a fire from within. The end of the bar which he held must have been very hot to an ordinary mortal, as everyone in the shop knew, all of them, at their initiation to the country club, having been handed a black piece of iron from Sandy's hand, which he held unflinchingly, but which the innocent receiver usually dropped with a yell. This was Sandy's favorite joke, and made life worth living for him. It was perhaps not so good as the blacksmith's own bit of humor, but public opinion was divided on that point. Every great man has his own particular set of admirers; and there were some who said,—under their breaths, of course,—that Sandy could turn a horseshoe as well as Macdonald himself. Experts, however, while admitting Sandy's general genius, did not go so far as this.

About half a dozen members of the club were present, and most of them stood leaning against something with hands deep in their trousers pockets; one was sitting on the blacksmith's bench, with his legs dangling down. On the bench tools were scattered around so thickly that he had had to clear a place before he could sit down; the taking of this liberty proved the man to be an old and privileged member. He sat there whittling a stick, aimlessly bringing it to a fine point, examining it frequently with a critical air, as if he were engaged in some delicate operation which required great discrimination.

The blacksmith himself stooped with his back to one of the horses, the hind hoof of the animal, between his knees, resting on his leathern apron. The horse was restive, looking over its shoulder at him, not liking what was going on. Macdonald swore at it fluently, and requested it to stand still, holding the foot as firmly as if it were in his own iron vise, which was fixed to the table near the whittler. With his right hand he held a hot horseshoe, attached to an iron punch that had been driven into one of the nail holes, and this he pressed against the upraised hoof, as though sealing a document with a gigantic seal. Smoke and flame rose from the contact of the hot iron with the hoof, and the air was filled with the not unpleasant odor of burning horn. The smith's tool box, with hammer, pinchers, and nails, lay on the earthern floor within easy reach. The sweat poured from his grimy brow; for it was a hot job, and Macdonald was in the habit of making the most of his work. He was called the hardest working man in that part of the country, and he was proud of the designation. He was a standing reproach to the loafers who frequented his shop, and that fact gave him pleasure in their company. Besides, a man must have an audience when he is an expert in swearing. Macdonald's profanity was largely automatic,—a natural gift, as it were,—and he meant nothing wrong by it. In fact, when you got him fighting angry, he always forgot to swear; but in his calm moments oaths rolled easily and picturesquely from his lips, and gave fluency to his conversation. Macdonald enjoyed the reputation round about of being a wicked man, which he was not; his language was against him, that was all. This reputation had a misty halo thrown around it by Macdonald's unknown doings "down East," from which mystical region he had come. No one knew just what Macdonald had done, but it was admitted on all sides that he must have had some terrible experiences, although he was still a young man and unmarried. He used to say: "When you have come through what I have, you won't be so ready to pick a quarrel with a man."

This must have meant something significant, but the blacksmith never took anyone into his confidence; and "down East" is a vague place, a sort of indefinite, unlocalized no-man's-land, situated anywhere between Toronto and Quebec. Almost anything might have happened in such a space of country. Macdonald's favorite way of crushing an opponent was to say: "When you've had some of my experiences, young man, you'll know better'n to talk like that." All this gave a certain fascination to friendship with the blacksmith; and the farmers' boys felt that they were playing with fire when in his company, getting, as it were, a glimpse of the dangerous side of life. As for work, the blacksmith reveled in it, and made it practically his only vice. He did everything with full steam on, and was, as has been said, a constant reproach to loafers all over the country. When there was no work to do, he made work. When there was work to do, he did it with a rush, sweeping the sweat from his grimy brow with his hooked fore finger, and flecking it to the floor with a flirt of the right hand, loose on the wrist, in a way that made his thumb and fore finger snap together like the crack of a whip. This action was always accompanied with a long-drawn breath, almost a sigh, that seemed to say: "I wish I had the easy times you fellows have." In fact, since he came to the neighborhood the current phrase, "He works like a steer" had given way to, "He works like Macdonald," except with the older people, who find it hard to change phrases. Yet everyone liked the blacksmith, and took no special offense at his untiring industry, looking at it rather as an example to others.

He did not look up as the two newcomers entered, but industriously pared down the hoof with a curiously formed knife turned like a hook at the point, burned in the shoe to its place, nailed it on, and rasped the hoof into shape with a long, broad file. Not till he let the foot drop on the earthen floor, and slapped the impatient horse on the flank, did he deign to answer young Bartlett's inquiry.

"No," he said, wringing the perspiration from his forehead, "all these horses aint ahead of you, and you won't need to come next week. That's the last hoof of the last horse. No man needs to come to my shop and go away again, while the breath of life is left in me. And I don't do it, either, by sitting on a bench and whittling a stick."

"That's so. That's so," said Sandy, chuckling, in the admiring tone of one who intimated that, when the boss spoke, wisdom was uttered. "That's one on you, Sam."

"I guess I can stand it, if he can," said the whittler from the bench; which was considered fair repartee.

"Sit it, you mean," said young Bartlett, laughing with the others at his own joke.

"But," said the blacksmith severely, "we're out of shoes, and you'll have to wait till we turn some, that is, if you don't want the old ones reset. Are they good enough?"

"I guess so, if you can find 'em; but they're out in the fields. Didn't think I'd bring the horses in while they held on, did you?" Then, suddenly remembering his duties, he said by, way of general introduction: "Gentlemen, this is my friend Mr. Yates from New York."

The name seemed to fall like a wet blanket on the high spirits of the crowd. They had imagined from the cut of his clothes that he was a storekeeper from some village around, or an auctioneer from a distance, these two occupations being the highest social position to which a man might attain. They were prepared to hear that he was from Welland, or perhaps St. Catherines; but New York! that was a crusher. Macdonald, however, was not a man to be put down in his own shop and before his own admirers. He was not going to let his prestige slip from him merely because a man from New York had happened along. He could not claim to know the city, for the stranger would quickly detect the imposture and probably expose him; but the slightly superior air which Yates wore irritated him, while it abashed the others. Even Sandy was silent.

"I've met some people from New York down East," he said in an offhand manner, as if, after all, a man might meet a New Yorker and still not sink into the ground.

"Really?" said Yates. "I hope you liked them."

"Oh, so-so," replied the blacksmith airily. "There's good and bad among them, like the rest of us."

"Ah, you noticed that," said Yates. "Well, I've often thought the same myself. It's a safe remark to make; there is generally no disputing it."

The condescending air of the New Yorker was maddening, and Macdonald realized that he was losing ground. The quiet insolence of Yates' tone was so exasperating to the blacksmith that he felt any language at his disposal inadequate to cope with it. The time for the practical joke had arrived. The conceit of this man must be taken down. He would try Sandy's method, and, if that failed, it would at least draw attention from himself to his helper.

"Being as you're from New York, maybe you can decide a little bet Sandy here wants to have with somebody."

Sandy, quick to take the hint, picked up the bar that always lay near enough the fire to be uncomfortably warm.

"How much do you reckon that weighs?" he said, with critical nicety estimating its ounces in his swaying hand. Sandy had never done it better. There was a look of perfect innocence on his bland, unsophisticated countenance, and the crowd looked on in breathless suspense.

Bartlett was about to step forward and save his friend, but a wicked glare from Macdonald restrained him; besides, he felt, somehow, that his sympathies were with his neighbors, and not with the stranger he had brought among them. He thought resentfully that Yates might have been less high and mighty. In fact, when he asked him to come he had imagined his brilliancy would be instantly popular, and would reflect glory on himself. Now he fancied he was included in the general scorn Yates took such little pains to conceal.

Yates glanced at the piece of iron and, without taking his hands from his pockets, said carelessly:

"Oh, I should imagine it weighed a couple of pounds."

"Heft it," said Sandy beseechingly, holding it out to him.

"No, thank you," replied Yates, with a smile. "Do you think I have never picked up a hot horseshoe before? If you are anxious to know its weight, why don't you take it over to the grocery store and have it weighed?"