"Yes," I said, and I slipped my bag off my shoulder and began to rummage inside. My companion watched me silently and suspiciously.
"You should not have left the rubbers."
With that I handed him my old rubbers. A peculiar expression came into the man's face.
"Say, pardner, what you drivin' at?"
"Well," I said, "I don't like to see such evidences of haste and inefficiency."
He stood staring at me helplessly, holding my old rubbers at arm's length.
"Come on now," I said, "that's over. We'll walk along together."
I was about to take his arm, but quick as a flash he dodged, cast both rubbers and rain-cape away from him, and ran down the road for all he was worth, the little dog, looking exactly like a rolling ball of fur, pelting after him. He never once glanced back, but ran for his life. I stood there and laughed until the tears came, and ever since then, at the thought of the expression on the jolly rover's face when I gave him my rubbers, I've had to smile. I put the rain-cape and rubbers back into my bag and turned again to the road.
Before the afternoon was nearly spent I found myself very tired, for my two days' experience in the city had been more exhausting for me, I think, than a whole month of hard labour on my farm. I found haven with a friendly farmer, whom I joined while he was driving his cows in from the pasture. I helped him with his milking both that night and the next morning, and found his situation and family most interesting--but I shall not here enlarge upon that experience.
It was late afternoon when I finally surmounted the hill from which I knew well enough I could catch the first glimpse of my farm. For a moment after I reached the top I could not raise my eyes, and when finally I was able to raise them I could not see.
"There is a spot in Arcady--a spot in Arcady--a spot in Arcady--"
So runs the old song.
There IS a spot in Arcady, and at the centre of it there is a weather-worn old house, and not far away a perfect oak tree, and green fields all about, and a pleasant stream fringed with alders in the little valley. And out of the chimney into the sweet, still evening air rises the slow white smoke of the supper-fire.
I turned from the main road, and climbed the fence and walked across my upper field to the old wood lane. The air was heavy and sweet with clover blossoms, and along the fences I could see that the raspberry bushes were ripening their fruit.
So I came down the lane and heard the comfortable grunting of pigs in the pasture lot and saw the calves licking one another as they stood at the gate.
"How they've grown!" I said.
I stopped at the corner of the barn for a moment. From within I heard the rattling of milk in a pail (a fine sound), and heard a man's voice saying:
"Whoa, there! Stiddy now!"
"Dick's milking," I said.
So I stepped in at the doorway.
"Lord, Mr. Grayson!" exclaimed Dick, rising instantly and clasping my hand like a long-lost brother.
"I'm glad to see you!"
"I'm glad to see YOU!"
The warm smell of the new milk, the pleasant sound of animals stepping about in the stable, the old mare reaching her long head over the stanchion to welcome me, and nipping at my fingers when I rubbed her nose--And there was the old house with the late sun upon it, the vines hanging green over the porch, Harriet's trim flower bed--I crept along quietly. to the corner. The kitchen door stood open.
"Well, Harriet!" I said, stepping inside.
"Mercy! David!"
I have rarely known Harriet to be in quite such a reckless mood.
She kept thinking of a new kind of sauce or jam for supper (I think there were seven, or were there twelve? on the table before I got through). And there was a new rhubarb pie such as only Harriet can make, just brown enough on top, and not too brown, with just the right sort of hills and hummocks in the crust, and here and there little sugary bubbles where a suggestion of the goodness came through--such a pie--! and such an appetite to go with it!
"Harriet," I said, "you're spoiling me. Haven't you heard how dangerous it is to set such a supper as this before a man who is perishing with hunger? Have you no mercy for me?"
This remark produced the most extraordinary effect. Harriet was at that moment standing in the corner near the pump. Her shoulders suddenly began to shake convulsively.
"She's so glad I'm home that she can't help laughing," I thought, which shows how penetrating I really am.
She was crying.
"Why, Harriet!" I exclaimed.
"Hungry!" she burst out, "and j-joking about it!"
