odded to him, "There'll be a reward out
for him, Jimmie--keep a watch out. You may have a chance at it. He's
hiding somewhere over there." He motioned toward the distant wood.

The old man turned a slow eye toward the west. "I don't own no
telescope," he said quaintly. He shifted the cud a little, and gazed at
the plain around them--far as the eye could see, it stretched on every
side. Only the little, white house stood comfortably in its midst--open
to the eye of heaven. It was a rambling, one story and a half house,
with no windows above the ground floor--except at the rear, where one
window, under a small peak, faced the north. Beyond the house, in that
direction, lay lines of market garden--and beyond the garden the wide
plain. Two men, at work in the garden, hoed with long, easy strokes that
lengthened in the slanting light. The service man looked at them with
casual eye. "Got good help this year?" he asked.

The old man faced about, and his eye regarded them mildly. "Putty good,"
he said, "they're my sister's boys. She died this last year--along in
April--and they come on to help. Yes, they work putty good."

"They drove in ahead of us, didn't they?" asked the service man, with
sudden thought.

The old man smiled drily. "Didn't know's you see 'em. You were so
occupied. Yes--they'd been in to sell the early potatoes. I've got a
putty good crop this year--early potatoes. They went in to make a price
on 'em. We'll get seventy-five if we take 'em in to-morrow--and they
asked what to do--and I told 'em they better dig." He chuckled slowly.

The service man smiled. "You keep 'em moving, don't you, Jimmie!" He
glanced at the house. "Any trade? Got a license this year?"

The old man shook his head. "Bone dry," he said, chewing slowly. "Them
cars knocked _me_ out!" He came and stood by the racer, running his hand
along it with childish touch.

The service man watched him with detached smile. The old man's silly
shrewdness amused him. He suspected him of a cask or two in the cellar.
In the days of bicycles the old man had driven a lively trade; but with
the long-reaching cars, his business dribbled away, and he had slipped
back from whiskey to potatoes. He was a little disgruntled at events,
and would talk socialism by the hour to anyone who would listen. But
he was a harmless old soul. The service man glanced at the sun. It had
dipped suddenly, and the plain grew dusky black. The distant figures
hoeing against the p