windows of the house across the way. Then I started, called my wife, and we riveted our two noses to the pane.

"The Silhouettes!" I exclaimed hoarsely.

"Sshh!" she cautioned, and took my hand.

The Man Silhouette was talking earnestly to the Girl Silhouette, and she was shaking her head. But suddenly she leaned closer to him, and threw her arms about his neck, and he kissed her, and she ran from the room and left him standing there.

Presently the Girl Silhouette came back, leading by the hand a large, fat Silhouette with whiskers. I recognized him as the man I had seen mowing the lawn and working the garden hose. He shook hands with the Man Silhouette, and kissed the Girl on the forehead, and joined their hands, and seemed to call toward the hallway; whereupon a fourth Silhouette came in.

"It's the Girl's mother!" said my wife.

They all stood together, and bowed and nodded and that sort of thing for an unconscionably long time, until our noses were cold from the glass. And then the Silhouette with the whiskers pushed all the other Silhouettes in the direction in which we knew their dining room lay, and stepped back to turn off the lights.

When there was nothing to see but the blank curtain, we went upstairs; and after I had retired my wife crept away. I awoke and found her an hour later, sound asleep with her nose against the pane, her unseeing eyes turned toward the house across the way, and a smile on her lips. I lifted her and put her on the bed—and she didn't stir until morning.

"That Man Silhouette," I said at breakfast; "did you see him last night after the—er—incident on the blinds?"

"Certainly not!" she replied, almost indignantly. "You men all think women are curious."

I wondered if she had only dreamed, or could she be a somnambulist!

"But," she added, as she poured the coffee, "I'm going to see what he looks like to-night, if I never get to bed; and I'm going to see her if I have to go over there and borrow butter!"

There you go again, Youth! There you are at it, Romance!

What would I not give to be back myself, to the time when we, mayhap, were silhouettes for the entertainment of our neighbors! But come on, old man, come on! You must go straight ahead, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year! Somewhere ahead there is a marble shaft, and a place with the roses; but your cradle is broken, your little tin wagon is rusted, your Noah's Ark is buried under the dust of years—and you have had your frivols!

FIFTH PERIOD

Buying a house when spring is young involves a lot of thought and anxiety, from which is developed a high nervous pressure. You alternate days of earnest application and enforced recuperation.

One begins to learn, too, how much he doesn't know.

Our yard, we found, was admirably adapted to quarry purposes, or would make an excellent clay bank. William told us he would level up the back lot and then put on a top soil and add a sort of compost of manure and loam, in which we could plant things. I reserved a square 18 by 25 feet for a patent wire pigeon fly.

"Why will you raise pigeons?" asked my wife.

"I will raise pigeons," I replied with dignity, "for their giblets. I love pigeon giblets. You may have the squibs."

"You mean squabs," said my wife.

"I said squibs," I insisted stanchly. "You should say squabs," suggested my wife mildly. "I will have squibs or nothing," I replied, as becoming master of the house, and squibs it was. So be it known, we are going to raise squibs.

"And I," said my wife, "shall raise a tomato. The back of the lot is in an all-day sun, and tomatoes thrive in the sun."

"And a turnip or two," I said. "If you plant a couple of turnips and let nature take its course, you'll have turnips all over the place. I've heard that turnips and belgian hares are noted for——"

"And sweet peas," said my wife, "I shall train them against the house."

"You cannot train a pea," I said scornfully. "You may train a pig, or a dog, but you cannot train a pea."

One of the reasons women may not vote is that they say just such foolish things as that! Train a pea, indeed! I would as lief try to train a doorknob!

With this little difficulty settled and out of the way, we made ready for serious work.

We were rather late getting into our gardening, but made up in enthusiasm what we lacked in knowledge. With a piece of string and a few sticks, Yours Truly laid off a strip from the steps around the front porch to the side foundation; and then with a spade the same victim of circumstances broke his back in three places and wore two lovely blisters into the palms of his forepaws.

Uncle Henry got his foot into the soil with a spade which, peculiarly enough, was borrowed from one named Cain, who lives next door. That other Cain was the father of agricolists. Observe how history carries itself down the ages with consistency! And to complete the picture, observe me watering the earth with my sweat!

Who in thunder ever invented the scheme of hiding pieces of brick, broken concrete, can tops, chunks of wood and the wreck of dishes right where a fellow wants to dig a garden? I like a practical joke myself, but that is going too far. In taking off the top soil there was a reasonably clear thoroughfare, but when the heft of my hoof went against the heel of the spade for the first downward dash, it struck an impenetrable ambush of mason's findings.

To make it worse, my wife stood on the porch cheerfully lending her aid in the form of advice. The man who owned the spade sat comfortably on his own porch reading The Evening Sun, and now and then glancing over the top at me with an amused smile. William came along.

"Are you digging a garden?" he asked.

"No," I replied idiotically; "I am running a footrace with an angle-worm!"

The Duke of Mont Alto whizzed by in his automobile and waved his hand. He tooted twice. I think he was kidding me. A friend, wending homeward with his dinnerpail, paused to observe that it was hot weather for digging. That self-consciousness that makes the whole world miserable on occasion seized me. From every window I imagined delighted neighbors looking on; in the twitter of the birds I heard merry giggles.

But against and in spite of all these handicaps I persisted. I had as implements, in addition to Cain's spade—how I love that connection!—one table knife, one garden claw, one trowel, one sharp stick, one cracked hoe, and one perfectly good vocabulary. I went after the clay ground with my hands in preference to any or all of the tools, and after half an hour of agony had removed, by actual count, one hundred and thirty-seven large stones and a small pile of pebbles, none of the pebbles weighing more than one pound. Then with my hands I crumbled the dirt chunks into powder and carefully sifted, smoothed off, rolled, tumbled, and otherwise adjusted the net product.

Sweat is the fluid excreted from the sudoriferous glands of the skin.

The sudoriferous glands of Yours Truly worked overtime. Yours Truly excreted, exuded, flooded. To be swimming around in your own atmosphere is a novel