lds of it
inside his neckband. Then with stern orders to hold his head still the
rite was consummated with a pair of shears commandeered from plain and
fancy dressmaking. Loath himself to begin the work, the judge always
came to feel, as it progressed, a fussy pride in his artistry; a pride
never in the least justified by results. To Wilbur, after these ordeals,
his own mirrored head was a strange and fearsome apparition, the ears
appearing to have been too carelessly affixed and the scanty remainder
of his hair left in furrows, with pallid scalp showing through. And
there were always hairs down his neck, despite the apron. Barbering was
not for him--not when you could drive a bus to all trains, or even a
dray.

There were also street encounters that summer with old Sharon Whipple,
who called the boy Buck and jocularly asked him what he was doing to
make a man of himself, and whom he would vote for at the next election.
One sunny morning, while Wilbur on River Street weighed the possible
attractions of the livery-stable office against the immediate certainty
of some pleasant hours with Rufus Paulding, off to the depot to get a
load of express packages for people, Sharon in his sagging buggy pulled
up to the curb before him and told him to jump in if he wanted a ride.
So he had jumped in without further debate.

Sharon's plump figure was loosely clad in gray, and his whimsical eyes
twinkled under a wide-brimmed hat of soft straw. He paused to light a
cigar after the boy was at his side--the buggy continuing to sag as
before--then he pushed up the ends of his eyebrows with the blunt thumb,
clicked to the long-striding roan, and they were off at a telling trot.
Out over West Hill they went, leaving a thick fog of summer dust in
their wake, and on through cool woods to a ridge from which the valley
opened, revealing a broad checker-board of ripening grain fields.

"Got to make three of my farms," volunteered Sharon after a silent
hour's drive.

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur, which seemed enough for them both until the
first of the farms was reached.

Sharon there descended, passing the reins to a proud Wilbur, for talk
with his tenant on the steps of the yellow frame farmhouse. Sharon bent
his thick round leg to raise a foot to a rustic seat, and upon the
cushion thus provided made figures in a notebook. After a time of this,
while Wilbur excitingly held the roan horse, made nervous by a hive of
bees against the whitewashed