from the city, slightly more fagged and
sardonic than usual, and as he stretched himself out in the big
porch-chair he was even more caustic than was his wont about the
bareness and emotional sterility of the lives of our country people.

"Perhaps they had, a couple of centuries ago, when the Puritan
hallucination was still strong, a certain fierce savor of religious
intolerance; but now that that has died out, and no material prosperity
has come to let them share in the larger life of their century, there is
a flatness, a mean absence of warmth or color, a deadness to all
emotions but the pettiest sorts----"

I pushed the pitcher nearer him, clinking the ice invitingly, and
directed his attention to our iris-bed as a more cheerful object of
contemplation than the degeneracy of the inhabitants of Vermont. The
flowers burned on their tall stalks like yellow tongues of flame. The
strong, sword-like green leaves thrust themselves boldly up into the
spring air like a challenge. The plants vibrated with vigorous life.

In the field beyond them, as vigorous as they, strode Adoniram Purdon
behind his team, the reins tied together behind his muscular neck, his
hands grasping the plow with the masterful sureness of the successful
practitioner of an art. The hot, sweet spring sunshine shone down on
'Niram's head with its thick crest of brown hair, the ineffable odor of
newly turned earth steamed up about him like incense, the mountain
stream beyond him leaped and shouted. His powerful body answered every
call made on it with the precision of a splendid machine. But there was
no elation in the grimly set face as 'Niram wrenched the plow around a
big stone, or as, in a more favorable furrow, the gleaming share sped
steadily along before the plowman, turning over a long, unbroken brown
ribbon of earth.

My cousin-in-law waved a nervous hand toward the sternly silent figure
as it stepped doggedly behind the straining team, the head bent forward,
the eyes fixed on the horses' heels.

"There!" he said. "There is an example of what I mean. Is there another
race on earth which could produce a man in such a situation who would
not on such a day sing, or whistle, or at least hold up his head and
look at all the earthly glories about him?"

I was silent, but not for lack of material for speech. 'Niram's reasons
for austere self-control were not such as I cared to discuss with a man
of my cousin's mental attitude. As we sat looking at