-cheeked, stocky, merry of eye, and somewhat phlegmatic. When, at
school, they had come to the story of the Dutch boy who saved his town
from flood by thrusting his finger into the hole in the dike and
holding it there until help came, the class, after one look at the
accompanying picture in the reader, dubbed young Ben "Dike" Westerveld.
And Dike he remained.

Between Dike and his father there was a strong but unspoken feeling.
The boy was cropwise, as his father had been at his age. On Sundays
you might see the two walking about the farm, looking at the
pigs--great black fellows worth almost their weight in silver; eying
the stock; speculating on the winter wheat showing dark green in April,
with rich patches that were almost black. Young Dike smoked a solemn
and judicious pipe, spat expertly, and voiced the opinion that the
winter wheat was a fine prospect Ben Westerveld, listening tolerantly
to the boy's opinions, felt a great surge of joy that he did not show.
Here, at last, was compensation for all the misery and sordidness and
bitter disappointment of his married life.

That married life had endured now for more than thirty years. Ben
Westerveld still walked with a light, quick step--for his years. The
stocky, broad-shouldered figure was a little shrunken. He was as neat
and clean at fifty-five as he had been at twenty-five-a habit that, on
a farm, is fraught with difficulties. The community knew and respected
him. He was a man of standing. When he drove into town on a bright
winter morning, in his big sheepskin coat and his shaggy cap and his
great boots, and entered the First National Bank, even Shumway, the
cashier, would look up from his desk to say:

"Hello, Westerveld! Hello! Well, how goes it?"

When Shumway greeted a farmer in that way you knew that there were no
unpaid notes to his discredit.

All about Ben Westerveld stretched the fruit of his toil; the work of
his hands. Orchards, fields, cattle, barns, silos. All these things
were dependent on him for their future well-being--on him and on Dike
after him. His days were full and running over. Much of the work was
drudgery; most of it was backbreaking and laborious. But it was his
place. It was his reason for being. And he felt that the reason was
good, though he never put that thought into words, mental or spoken.
He only knew that he was part of the great scheme of things and that he
was functioning ably. If he had expressed him