ng. Such
evidences of care and thrift were so unusual in that northerly region
that I spoke of it to my driver.

"Ah, heem ole Yarnkee man," the _habitant_ said. "Heem work all time."

As if in confirmation of this remark an aged man, hearing our wheels,
rose suddenly in the garden where he was weeding, with his face toward
us. Something strangely familiar in his looks at once riveted my
attention. I bade the driver stop and, jumping out, climbed the log
fence inclosing the garden and approached the old man.

"Isn't your name Edwards--Jonathan Edwards?" I exclaimed.

He stood for some moments regarding me without speaking. "Wal, they
don't call me that here," he said at last, still regarding me fixedly.

I told him then who I was and how I had come to be there. I was not
absolutely certain that it was Grandpa Edwards, yet I felt pretty sure.
His hair was a little whiter and his face somewhat more wrinkled; yet he
had changed surprisingly little. His hearing, too, did not appear to be
much impaired, and he was doing a pretty good job of weeding without
glasses.

I could see that he was in doubt about admitting his identity to me. "It
is only by accident I saw you," I said. "I did not come to find you."

Still he did not speak and seemed disinclined to do so, or to admit
anything about himself. I was sorry that I had stopped to accost him,
but now that I had done so I went on quite as a matter of course to give
him tidings of the old Squire and of grandmother Ruth. "They are both
living and well; they speak of you at times," I said. "Your
disappearance grieved them. I don't think they ever blamed you."

His face worked strangely; his hands, grasping the hoe handle, shook;
but still he said nothing.

"Have you ever had word from your folks at the old farm?" I asked him at
length. "Have you had any news of them at all?"

He shook his head. I then informed him that his son Jotham had died four
years before; that Tom had gone abroad as an engineer; that Catherine
was living at home, managing the old place and doing it well; that she
had paid off the mortgage and was prospering.

He listened in silence; but his face worked painfully at times.

As I was speaking an elderly woman came to the door of the house and
stood looking toward us.

"That is my wife," he said, noticing that I saw her. "She is a good
woman. She takes good care of me."

I felt that it would be unkind to press him further and turned to go.