a
broken saw in his buggy. Such is the perversity of rival artists that I
don't think Charles Baxter had ever been to Carlstrom with any work. But
this morning when I went to town and stopped at Carlstrom's shop I found
the gunsmith humming louder than ever.

"Well, Carlstrom, when are we to say good-by?" I asked.

"I'm not going," he said, and taking me by the sleeve he led me over to
his bench and showed me a saw he had mended. Now, a broken saw is one of
the high tests of the genius of the mender. To put the pieces together
so that the blade will be perfectly smooth, so that the teeth match
accurately, is an art which few workmen of to-day would even attempt.

"Charles Baxter brought it in," answered the old gunsmith, unable to
conceal his delight. "He thought I couldn't mend it!"

To the true artist there is nothing to equal the approbation of a rival.
It was Charles Baxter, I am convinced, who was the deciding factor.
Carlstrom couldn't leave with one of Baxter's saws unmended! But back of
it all, I know, is the hand and the heart of the Scotch Preacher.

The more I think of it the more I think that our gunsmith possesses many
of the qualities of true greatness. He has the serenity, and the humour,
and the humility of greatness. He has a real faith in God. He works, he
accepts what comes. He thinks there is no more honourable calling than
that of gunsmith, and that the town he lives in is the best of all
towns, and the people he knows the best people.

Yes, it _is_ greatness.

X

THE MOWING

"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons,
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with
the earth."

This is a well earned Sunday morning. My chores were all done long ago,
and I am sitting down here after a late and leisurely breakfast with
that luxurious feeling of irresponsible restfulness and comfort which
comes only upon a clean, still Sunday morning like this--after a week of
hard work--a clean Sunday morning, with clean clothes, and a clean chin,
and clean thoughts, and the June airs stirring the clean white curtains
at my windows. From across the hills I can hear very faintly the drowsy
sounds of early church bells, never indeed to be heard here except on a
morning of surpassing tranquillity. And in the barnyard back of the
house Harriet's hens are cackling triumphantly: they are impiously
unobservant of the Sabbath day.

I turned out my mare for a run in the pasture. She ha