nt the afternoon in the little room, where he would glance up to
find the small, barefoot boy staring at him in wonder; and out in the
Penniman front yard, where the summer flowers bloomed. These
surroundings presented every assurance of safety, yet his restless,
wide-sweeping gaze was full of caution, especially after the aeroplane
went over. At the first ominous note of its droning he had broken for
cover. After that, in spite of himself, he would be glancing uneasily at
the Plummer place across the road. This was fronted by a hedge of
cypress--ideal machine-gun cover. But not once during the long afternoon
was he shot at. He brought out and repaired the lawn mower, oiled its
rusted parts and ran it gayly over the grass. At suppertime, when Dave
Cowan came, he was wetting the shorn sward with spray from a hose.

"Back?" said Dave, peering as at a bit of the far cosmos flung in his
way.

"Back," said his son.

They shook hands.

"You haven't changed any," said Wilbur, scanning Dave's placid face
under the straw hat and following the lines of his spare figure down to
the vestiges of a once noble pair of shoes.

"You only been away two years," said Dave. "I wouldn't change much in
that time. That's the way of the mind, though. We always forget how
slowly evolution works its wonders. Anyhow, you know what they say in
our trade--when a printer dies he turns into a white mule. I'm no white
mule yet. You've changed, though."

"I didn't know it."

"Face harder--about ten years older. Kind of set and sour looking. Ever
laugh any more?"

"Of course I laugh."

"You don't look it. Never forget how to laugh. It's a life-saver. Laugh
even at wars and killings. Human life in each of us isn't much. It's
like that stream you're spreading over the ground. The drops fall back
to earth, but the main stream is constant. That's all the life force
cares about--the main stream. Doesn't care about the drops; a few more
or less here and there make no difference."

"Yes, sir," said Wilbur.

Dave Cowan scanned the front of the house. The judge was not in sight.
He went softly to lean above the parrot's cage and in low, wheedling
tones, uttered words to it.

"Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle, Flapdoodle!" screeched the parrot in return,
and laughed harshly. The bird was a master of sarcastic inflection.

Dave came back looking pleased and proud.

"Almost human," he declared. "Kept back a few million years by
accident--our little feathere