riated boar. His hands
shook. Suddenly he turned upon me, poising his stick in his hand, and
said violently.

"And who are you? Who are you? Are you one of these surveyor fellows?"

"My name," I answered as quietly as I could, "is Grayson. I live on the
old Mather farm. I am not in the least interested in any of your road
troubles."

He looked at me a moment more, and then seemed to shake himself or
shudder, his eyes dropped away and he began walking toward his house.
He had taken only a few steps, however, before he turned, and, without
looking at me, asked if I would like to see the tools he used for
trimming his hedge. When I hesitated, for I was decidedly uncomfortable,
he came up to me and laid his hand awkwardly on my arm.

"You'll see something, I warrant, you never see before."

It was so evident that he regretted his outbreak that I followed him,
and he showed me an odd double ladder set on low wheels which he said he
used in trimming the higher parts of his hedge.

"It's my own invention," he said with pride.

"And that"--he pointed as we came out of the tool shed--"is my house--a
good house. I planned it all myself. I never needed to take lessons of
any carpenter I ever see. And there's my barns. What do you think o' my
barns? Ever see any bigger ones? They ain't any bigger in this country
than Old Toombs's barns. They don't like Old Toombs, but they ain't any
of one of 'em can ekal his barns!"

He followed me down to the roadside now quite loquacious. Even after I
had thanked him and started to go he called after me.

When I stopped he came forward hesitatingly--and I had the impressions,
suddenly, and for the first time that he was an old man. It may have
been the result of his sudden fierce explosion of anger, but his hand
shook, his face was pale, and he seemed somehow broken.

"You--you like my hedge?" he asked.

"It is certainly wonderful hedge," I said. "I never have seen anything
like it?"

"The' AIN'T nothing like it," he responded, quickly. "The' ain't nothing
like it anywhere."

In the twilight as I passed onward I saw the lonely figure of the old
man moving with his hickory stick up the pathway to his lonely house.
The poor rich old man!

"He thinks he can live wholly to himself," I said aloud.

I thought, as I tramped homeward, of our friendly and kindly community,
of how we often come together of an evening with skylarking and
laughter, of how we weep with one another, of how