were ladders
and poles clattering out behind, and rolls of wire on upright spools
rattling and flashing in the sunshine, and the men of the crew were
sitting along the sides of the truck with hats off and hair flying as
they came bumping and bounding up the road. It was a brave thing to see
going by on a spring morning!

As they passed, whom should I see but Bill himself, at the top of the
load, with a broad smile on his face. When his eye fell on me he threw
up one arm, and gave me the railroad salute.

"Hey, there!" he shouted.

"Hey there, yourself," I shouted in return--and could not help it.

I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd
of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load.

It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and
taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though
it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as
adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet
but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay
that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning.

Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little
valley near the far corner of Horace's farm, I found the truck, and Bill
just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped pennies and
Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools while the others
went down to the mill pond in the valley below.

"How are you?" said I.

"How are _you_?" said he.

I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind.

"Fine day," said I.

"You bet," said he.

He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the
roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below
into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and
somewhere in the thicket I heard a wood thrush singing.

"Did you ever see John L. Sullivan?" I asked.

He glanced up at me quickly, but with new interest.

"No, did you?"

"Or Bob Fitzsimmons?"

"Nope--but I was mighty near it once. I've seen 'em both in the movies."

"Well, sir," said I, "that's interesting. I should like to see them
myself. Do you know what made me speak of them?"

He had spread down a newspaper and was taking the luncheon out of his
"bucket," as he called it, including a large bottle of coffee; but he
paused and looked at me with keen interest.

"Well," said I,