right," he said; "no one will disturb you." And he went home to Mrs.
Grumble.

"Where have you been all day?" she demanded.

Mr. Jeminy smiled. He knew that Mrs. Grumble thought he had been
spending the afternoon at Mrs. Wicket's. "I have been to call on Mrs.
Ploughman," he said. "There I met old Mrs. Crabbe."

Then Mrs. Grumble hurried out into the garden to pick a mess of young
beans for supper, because Mr. Jeminy liked them better than squash.
The bowl of squash she returned to the ice box. "I'll eat it myself,
to-morrow," she thought.

"Supper will be a little late," she said to Mr. Jeminy, "because the
stove won't draw in wet weather."

VI

HARVEST

Mr. Jeminy, clad in a pair of brown, earthy overalls, a blue, cotton
shirt, and a straw hat, full of holes, was helping Mr. Tomkins dig
potatoes, up on Barly Hill. From the field on the slopes above the
village, he could see the hills across the valley, misted in the sun.
Above him stretched the shining sky, thronged with its winds, the low
clouds of early autumn trailing their shadows across the woods. All
was peace; he saw September's yellow fields, and felt, on his face, the
cool fall wind, with its smoke of burning leaves, mingled with the odor
of spaded earth, and fresh manure.

With every toss of his fork he covered with earth the little piles of
straw and ordure which Mr. Tomkins had spread on the ground. As he
advanced in this manner, small flocks of sparrows rose before him, and
flew away with dissatisfied cries. "Come," he said to them, "the world
does not belong to you. I believe you have never read the works of
Epictetus, who says, 'true education lies in learning to distinguish
what is ours, from what does not belong to us.' However, you have a
more modern spirit; for you believe that whatever you see belongs to
you, providing you are able to get hold of it."

He was happy; in the warm, noon-day drowse, he felt, like Abraham, the
grace of God within him, and found even in the humblest sparrow enough
to afford him an opportunity to discuss morals with himself.

"There'll be potatoes," said Mr. Tomkins, "enough to last all winter
for the two of us. That's riches, Jeminy; where's your talk now of the
world being poor?"

"Some of these potatoes," said Mr. Jeminy, bending over, "are rotted
from the wet weather."

"To-morrow," said Mr. Tomkins, "I'll borrow a harrow from Farmer Barly.
And next spring I'll plant corn here on the