le trees--and store it all away in _my_ bank--to live on next
winter."

It was some time before either of us spoke again, but I could see from
the corner of my eye that mighty things were going on inside of Horace;
and suddenly he broke out into a big laugh and clapped his knee with his
hand in a way he has.

"Is that all!" said Horace.

I think it only confirmed him in the light esteem in which he held me.
Though I showed him unmeasured wealth in his own fields, ungathered
crops of new enjoyment, he was unwilling to take them, but was content
with hay. It is a strange thing to me, and a sad one, how many of our
farmers (and be it said in a whisper, other people, too) own their lands
without ever really possessing them: and let the most precious crops of
the good earth go to waste.

After that, for a long time, Horace loved to joke me about my crops and
his. A joke with Horace is a durable possession.

"S'pose you think that's your field," he'd say.

"The best part of it," I'd return, "but you can have all I've taken, and
there'll still be enough for both of us."

"You're a queer one!" he'd say, and then add sometimes, dryly, "but
there's one crop ye don't git, David," and he'd tap his pocket where he
carries his fat, worn, leather pocket-book. "And as fer feelin's, it
can't be beat."

So many people have the curious idea that the only thing the world
desires enough to pay its hard money for is that which can be seen or
eaten or worn. But there never was a greater mistake. While men will
haggle to the penny over the price of hay, or fight for a cent more to
the bushel of oats, they will turn out their very pockets for strange,
intangible joys, hopes, thoughts, or for a moment of peace in a feverish
world the unknown great possessions.

So it was that one day, some months afterward, when we had been thus
bantering each other with great good humour, I said to him:

"Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?"

"Off that one little piece," he replied, "I figger fifty-two dollars."

"Well, Horace," said I, "I have beaten you. I got more out of it this
year than you did."

"Oh, I know what you mean----"

"No, Horace, you don't. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash,
dollars."

"How's that, now?"

"Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the
grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the timothy,
and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it las