a plain, matter-of-fact way, and declared he was immensely relieved
to be back again.

"Well," said William, when it came to his turn, "I'm glad to be back
too. Not that I didn't like it. Say, after the first day, I enjoyed
ev'ry minute. I went to the Millers' farm at Varency, in Haldmand
County, and maybe they ain't THE PEOPLE. B'lieve me--well--say,
honest, Lucien, all the fool things I uster think about farmers,
callin' 'em 'Rubes' and 'Hayseeds,' and such like, and about their work
and houses and everything, makes me feel like kicking myself from here
to home, and that's quite a walk. If I was oner them kind that wakes
up in the night and thinks about the past, I'd blush in the dark for
the fool I was. But when I falls asleep it's me's a log till somebody
yells in my ear that breakfast's ready. Anyway, what I used to think
about farmers is buried deep, with a lot more foolish truck I've been
getting rid of this last few weeks.

"Say, there's three fellows there, Emerson, Laird, and George, and
every one of 'em's over six feet, and wide too, and smart, uh! Laird,
he's a schoolmaster already, and you'd orter hear him telling stories
about them old Romans and Greeks, and explainin' things that a dub like
me's sure to get stuck on. The other two they say one schoolmaster to
a family's enough, and it's them sticking to the farm, and they ain't
no slouches on farming neither. They've read an awful lot, and
attended lectures, and got things down fine. They doctor the horses
and cattle when they're sick, and, unless they break a leg or something
like that, they doctor themselves too. Emerson, he's a swell re-citer.
Honest, Lucien, he'd make you laugh, or cry, or anything, with the
pieces he knows by heart, let alone what he can do with pieces he ain't
never seen before when he reads 'em out for the first time. And
George, he can clog-dance, and play the banjo like a pro-fessional.
And the girls are smart too; there's four of 'em. Gee! I thought I'd
have to go home long before two weeks was up, they were so kind to me.
The boys and their Dad--they always called him that--uster work like
blazes from daylight, and often before, right on until evenings, and
then we'd sit around on the porch after supper, and--and----" he broke
off abruptly.

"Yes?" said Lucien, quietly, after a moment's silence.

"Say, Lucien, did you ever get a hunch all of a sudden, just when
you're enjoyin' yourself, that it'll never be t