over in front of it. I
cannot tell you how good it looked as we came in from the hot, dry
fields.

"After you," says Dick.

I gave my sleeves another roll upward and unbuttoned and turned in the
moist collar of my shirt. Then I stooped over and put my head under the
pump spout.

"Pump, Dick," said I.

And Dick pumped.

"Harder, Dick," said I in a strangled voice.

And Dick pumped still harder, and presently I came up gasping with my
head and hair dripping with the cool water. Then I pumped for Dick.

"Gee, but that's good," says Dick.

Harriet came out with clean towels, and we dried ourselves, and talked
together in low voices. And feeling a delicious sense of coolness we sat
down for a moment in the shade of the maple and rested our arms on our
knees. From the kitchen, as we sat there, we could hear the engaging
sounds of preparation, and busy voices, and the tinkling of dishes, and
agreeable odours! Ah, friend and brother, there may not be better
moments in life than this!

So we sat resting, thinking of nothing; and presently we heard the
screen door click and Ann Spencer's motherly voice:

"Come in now, Mr. Grayson, and get your dinner."

Harriet had set the table on the east porch, where it was cool and
shady. Dick and I sat down opposite each other and between us there was
a great brown bowl of moist brown beans with crispy strips of pork on
top, and a good steam rising from its depths; and a small mountain of
baked potatoes, each a little broken to show the snowy white interior;
and two towers of such new bread as no one on this earth (or in any
other planet so far as I know) but Harriet can make. And before we had
even begun our dinner in came the ample Ann Spencer, quaking with
hospitality, and bearing a platter--let me here speak of it with the
bated breath of a proper respect, for I cannot even now think of it
without a sort of inner thrill--bearing a platter of her most famous
fried chicken. Harriet had sacrificed the promising careers of two young
roosters upon the altar of this important occasion. I may say in passing
that Ann Spencer is more celebrated in our neighbourhood by virtue of
her genius at frying chicken, than Aristotle or Solomon or Socrates, or
indeed all the big-wigs of the past rolled into one.

So we fell to with a silent but none the less fervid enthusiasm. Harriet
hovered about us, in and out of the kitchen, and poured the tea and the
buttermilk, and Ann Spencer upon ever