Japanese print. Standing off a way, however, the pine stood out sharply against the hills and the sky, a noble veteran, almost black.

Then and there I saw my book plate–a coloured woodcut, green and blue, with the pine in black on the key block!

Then I reflected how I stood on soil which must be made to pay me back in potatoes for the outlay, stood, as it were, on top of my practical problem–and dreamed of book plates!

“Somebody ought to get amusement out of this!” I said aloud, as I set off for the barn, gathered up my suitcase, and climbed the road toward Bert Temple’s.

If I live to be a hundred, I can never repay Bert Temple, artist in cauliflowers and best of friends in my hour of need. Bert and his wife took me in, treated me as a human, if helpless, fellow being, not as a “city man” to be fleeced, and gave me the best advice and the best supper a man ever had, meantime assuring me that my cows had been tested, and both were sound.

The supper came first. I hadn’t eaten such a supper since grandmother died. There were brown bread Joes–only rival of Rhode Island Johnny cake for the title of the lost ambrosia of Olympus. They were so hot that the butter melted over them instantly, and crisp outside, with delicious, runny insides.

“Mrs. Temple,” said I, “I haven’t eaten brown bread Joes since I was a boy. I didn’t know the secret existed any more.”

Mrs. Temple beamed over her ample and calico-covered bosom. “You must hev come from Essex or Middlesex counties,” she said, “if you’ve et brown bread Joes before.”

“Essex,” said I.

“Essex!” she cried. “Well, well! I came from Georgetown. Bert, he’s Middlesex. I dunno what we’re doing out here in these ungodly, half York State mountains, but here we be, and the secret’s with us.”

“Let me have some more of the secret,” said I. “I’m growing younger with every mouthful.”

After supper Bert took me in hand. “First thing fer you to do’s to git a farmer and carpenter,” he said. “I kin git yer both, if yer want I should, an’ not sting yer. Most noo folks thet come here gits stung. Seems like Bentford thinks thet’s why they come!”

“I’m clay in your hands,” said I.

“Wall, yer don’t exactly know me intimately,” said Bert with a laugh, “so yer’d better git a bit o’ granite into yer system. Neow, ez to a farmer–there’s Mike Finn. He’s not French, ez yer might guess, but he’s honest ez the 21st o’ June is long, an’ he’s out of a job on account of the Sulloways hevin’ sold their estate whar he wuz gardener an’ the noo folks bringin’ their own, an’ he lives ’bout a quarter of a mile from your corner. He’ll come an’ his son’ll help out with the heavy work, sech ez ploughin’, which you’d better begin termorrer.”

“Mike it is,” said I. “What will he want for wages?”

“He’ll ask yer $60 a month, an’ take $45, an’ earn it all,” Bert answered. “We’ll walk deown an’ see him neow, ef yer like.”

I liked, and in the soft, spring evening we set off down the road. “But,” I was saying, “$45 a month for skilled labour seems to me a measly wage. I’m ashamed to offer it. Why, college instructors get as much as that! I shall offer Mike $50.”

“Do yer want ter spile all the hired help in Bentford?” cried Bert.

“No,” said I, “but Mike gets $50, and perhaps a raise if he makes good. I believe in the hire being worth the labourer. That’s flat.”

“Wal, then, ez to carpenters,” Bert switched, seeing that I could not be budged; “thar’s good carpenters, an’ bad carpenters, an’ Hard Cider Howard. Hard Cider’s fergotten more abeout carpent’rin’ then most o’ the rest ever knoo, and he ain’t fergot much, neither. But he ain’t handsome, and he looks upon the apple juice when it’s yaller. Maybe yer don’t mind looks, an’ I kin keep Hard Cider sober while he’s on your job. He’ll treat yer fair, an’ see thet the plumbers do, an’ fix all them rotten sills ez good ez noo.”

“What’s that?” said I. “Rotten sills?”

“Sure,” Bert answered. “Mean to tell me yer didn’t know thet? Yer can’t pack all yer sills with leaves fer a hundred years, an’ not take ’em away summers half the time, an’ not rot yer sills. I’d say, treat ’em with cement like they do trees neow.”

I began to have visions of my remaining $24,000 melting away in sills.

“I suppose the barn is rotten, too?” said I, faintly, as an interrogation.

We were then passing the barn. Bert stepped in–the door wasn’t locked–lit a lantern, came out with it, and led me around to one side. He held the lantern against one of the timbers which formed the foundation frame. It was a foot in diameter, and made of hand-hewn oak! Though it had never been guilty of paint, it looked as solid as a rock.

“Barn needs some patchin’ and floorin’ and a few shingles,” said Bert, “but it ain’t doo to fall deown jest yit!”

He put the lantern back, and we walked on, turned the corner at my brook, and followed the other road along past my pines till we came to a small settlement of white cottages. At one of these Bert knocked. We were admitted by a pretty, blue-eyed Irish girl, who had a copy of Cæsar’s Commentaries in her hand, into a tiny parlour where an “airtight” stove stood below a coloured chromo of the Virgin and Child, and a middle-aged Irishman sat in his shirt sleeves, smoking a pipe.

“Hello, Mike,” said Bert, “this is Mr. John Upton, who’s bought Milt Noble’s place, an’ wants a farmer and gardener. I told him you wuz the man.”

“Sit down, sor, sit down,” said Mike, offering a chair with an expansive and hospitable gesture. “Sure, let’s talk it over.”

The pretty daughter had gone back to her Cæsar by the nickel oil lamp, but she had one ear toward us, and I caught a corner of her eye, too–an extremely attractive, not to say provocative, eye.

“Well, now,” Mike was saying, “sure I can run a farm, but what do I be gettin’ for it?”

“Fifty a month,” said I, “which includes milking the cows and tending furnace in winter.”

“Sure, I got more than that on me last place and no cows at all.”

“Ye’re a liar, Mike,” said Bert.

“That’s a fightin’ word in the ould country,” said Mike.

“This ain’t the old country, and yer got $45,” Bert grinned. “Besides, yer’ll be close to yer work. You wuz a mile an’ a half frum the Sulloways. Thet makes up fer the milkin’.”

“True, true,” Mike replied, meditatively. “But what be yer runnin’ the place for, Mr. Upton? Is it a real farmer ye’d be?”

“A real farmer,” I answered. “Why?”

“Well, I didn’t know. Onct I worked fer one o’ them literary fellers that married rich, and he was always fer makin’ me try new-fangled things in the ground instead o’ good old cow manure. Begorra, he nigh drove the life out o’ me with his talk o’ bac-bac-bac somethin’–some kind of bugs, if ye can beat that–that he said made nitrogen. I’ve heard say yer wuz a literary feller, too, Mr. Upton, and I have me doubts.”

“Well, I am a sort of a literary feller,” I confessed, “but I never married a rich wife.”

“Sure, ye’re not so old to be past hopin’,” Mike replied.

I shook my head, and added, “But it’s you I want to be the real literary feller, Mike. You must write me a poem in potatoes.”

Mike put back his head and roared. “It’s a pome yer