d eastward
into one of the little hill farms beyond the charcoal camp. He had been
bedridden nearly all winter, but uncomplainingly, his wife and
daughter-in-law caring for him, and it was not until the early part of
May, when all the world was growing green, that he began to mend and at
the same time groan at his confinement.

"I tried to cheer him up, telling him that the worst was over, and that
he soon would be about again, and he replied: ''Tain't me that's doin' of
it, Doctor, hit's the sweatin' of the corn. You know everywhere in May
folks be plantin' corn, the time bein' the sign that frost is over and
done with.' I nodded assent, and he continued: 'Now naterally there's
lots of corn in ear and shelled and ground to meal that isn't planted,
and along as when the kernels in the ground begins to swell and sprout,
this other corn knows it and begins to heave and sweat, and if it isn't
handled careful-like, and taken in the air and cooled, it'll take on all
sorts of moulds and musts, and like as not turn useless. I holds it's
just the same with folks,--when springtime comes they fetch up restless
and need the air and turning out to sweeten in the sun until they settle
down again, else their naturs turn sour, pisen'us, and unwholesome,
breedin' worms like sweated corn!'

"Since then I've heard it here and there in other words, but always the
same motive, the old miller holding it all fact and no legend at all,
saying that if he can keep his surplus corn from sweating and well aired
through May and June, he never fears for it in the damper, more potent
August heat. One thing is certain, that in my practice in countryside,
village, and town, if strange doings break out and restless
discontentment arises, it is never in winter, when I should expect
partial torpidity to breed unrest, but in the pushing season of renewal,
and, as the old man terms it, 'corn sweating.'"

* * * * *

A little later I was going toward the garden when father called after me
to say that he was soon starting for a long trip, quite up to Pine Ridge,
and that if I cared to go, taking a lunch for both, it might give me a
chance to "turn and sweeten" in the sun and cure my restlessness with
natural motion.

Go? Of course my heart leaped at the very thought, because, in spite of
the boys, those long drives with father have grown more precious as they
grow more rare. But where were the twins? They had disappeared un