dabout," she said;
"I hope he doesn't think to try and sell us anything. Men with
something to sell always talk like the minister first."

But Aaron, with his mind on the far off world across the smoky autumn
hills, was pained at such a suggestion. "You're wrong, mother," he
said solemnly. "No, sirree. He's not from roundabout. And he's no
common tramp either. He's come a distance, I believe."

"Then," said Margaret with regret, "I suppose he'll be going on again."

Aaron Bade stared attentively at one brown hand. "We could use a man
on the farm," he said.

It gave his wife no pleasure to be obliged to agree with him.

"There's plenty still for a man to do, after you're done," she said.
But she smiled almost at once; for like the women of that north
country, crabbed and twisted as their own apple trees, she loved her
husband for the trouble he gave her.

"It's a queer thing," said Aaron; "he has the look of a bookish man.
Like old St. John Deakan down to the Forge, only St. John don't know
anything, for all his looks."

"His talk was elegant," Mrs. Bade agreed. She stood still for a
moment, looking down at her pots and pans. "He's seen a deal of life,
I dare say," she added casually--so casually as to make one almost
think that she herself had seen all she wanted to see.

"Well," said Aaron, "that's what schooling does for a man. It gives
him a manner of talking, along with something to say."

Margaret, bent over her work again, plunged her red, wet arms up to the
elbow in hot, soapy water. "You'll never lack talk, Aaron," she
remarked; "or suffer for want of something to say. But it isn't
washing my pots for me, nor bringing in the corn . . ."

"I'm going along now," said Aaron. "If the old man wakes before I'm
back again, don't hurry him off, mother; I'd be glad to talk with him a
bit before he goes."

"Who said anything about hurrying him off?" cried Mrs. Bade. "He can
stay till doomsday, for all I care. He can sit and talk to me, while
you're blowing on your flute. It'll be real companionable."

And she turned back to her pots and pans, a faint smile causing her
mouth to curl down at one end, and up at the other.

Mr. Jeminy awoke in the afternoon. It was the nature of this kind and
simple man to accept without question the hospitality of people he had
never seen before; for he felt friendly toward every one. As he sat
down to supper with the Bades, he bowed his head, and offered up