number of crops of alfalfa
you could grow in a year.

Already Jack felt at home. It was as if he were friends with a whole
world, lacking the social distinctions which only begin when someone
acquires sufficient worldly possessions to give exclusive, formal
dinners. He knew every passer-by well enough to address him or her by the
Christian name. Women called to him from porches with a dozen invitations
to visit gardens.

"Just a saunter, just a try-out before I take the train. Not going far,"
he always answered; yet there was something in his bearing that suggested
a definite mission.

"We hate to lose you!" called Mrs. Smith.

"I hate to be lost!" Jack called back; "but that is just my
natural luck."

"I suppose you've got your work cut out for you back East, same's
everybody else, somewhere or other, 'less they're millionaires, who all
stay in the city and try to run from microbes in their automobiles."

"Yes, I have work--lots of it," said Jack, ruefully. He shifted his
weight on the crutches, paused and looked at the sky. The Eternal Painter
was dipping his brush lightly and sweeping soft, silvery films, as a kind
of glorified finger-exercise, over an intangible blue.

"Why care? Why care?" His Majesty was asking. "Why not leave all the
problems of earthly existence to your lungs? Why not lie back and look on
at things and breathe my air? That is enough to keep your whole being in
tune with the Infinite."

It was his afternoon mood. At sunset he would have another. Then he would
be crying out against the folly of wasting one precious moment in the
eons, because that moment could never return to be lived over.

Jack kept on until he recognized the cement bridge where he had stopped
when he came from the post-office with Mary. Left bare of its
surroundings, the first habitation in Little Rivers, with the ell which
had been added later, would have appeared a barracks. But Jasper Ewold
had the oldest trees and the most luxuriant hedge and vines as the reward
of his pioneerdom.

When Jack crossed the bridge and stood in the opening of the hedge there
was no one on the porch in the inviting shade of the prodigal
bougainvillea vines. So he hitched his way up the steps. Feeling that it
was a formal occasion, he searched for the door-bell. There was none. He
rapped on the casing and waited, while he looked at the cool, quiet
interior, with the portrait of David facing him from the wall.

"David, you seem to be