The Friendly Road | Page 9

speed. The father followed with more dignity, but with evident amusement, and so we all came with a rush to the end of the row.
"I guess that beats the record across THIS field!" remarked the lad, puffing and wiping his forehead. "Say, but you're a good one!"
It gave me a peculiar thrill of pleasure; there is nothing more pleasing than the frank admiration of a boy.
We paused a moment and I said to the man: "This looks like fine potato land."
"The' ain't any better in these parts," he replied with some pride in his voice.
And so we went at the planting again: and as we planted we had great talk of seed potatoes and the advantages and disadvantages of mechanical planters, of cultivating and spraying, and all the lore of prices and profits. Once we stopped at the lower end of the field to get a drink from a jug of water set in the shade of a fence corner, and once we set the horse in the thills and moved the seed farther up the field. And tired and hungry as I felt I really enjoyed the work; I really enjoyed talking with this busy father and son, and I wondered what their home life was like and what were their real ambitions and hopes. Thus the sun sank lower and lower, the long shadows began to creep into the valleys, and we came finally toward the end of the field. Suddenly the boy Ben cried out:
"There's Sis!"
I glanced up and saw standing near the gateway a slim, bright girl of about twelve in a fresh gingham dress.
"We're coming!" roared Ben, exultantly.
While we were hitching up the horse, the man said to me:
"You'll come down with us and have some supper."
"Indeed I will," I replied, trying not to make my response too eager.
"Did mother make gingerbread to-day?" I heard the boy whisper audibly.
"Sh-h--" replied the girl, "who is that man?"
"I don't know" with a great accent of mystery--"and dad don't know. Did mother make gingerbread?"
"Sh-h--he'll hear you."
"Gee! but he can plant potatoes. He dropped down on us out of a clear sky."
"What is he?" she asked. "A tramp?"
"Nope, not a tramp. He works. But, Sis, did mother make gingerbread?"
So we all got into the light wagon and drove briskly out along the shady country road. The evening was coming on, and the air was full of the scent of blossoms. We turned finally into a lane and thus came promptly, for the horse was as eager as we, to the capacious farmyard. A motherly woman came out from the house, spoke to her son, and nodded pleasantly to me. There was no especial introduction. I said merely, "My name is Grayson," and I was accepted without a word.
I waited to help the man, whose name I had now learned--it was Stanley--with his horse and wagon, and then we came up to the house. Near the back door there was a pump, with a bench and basin set just within a little cleanly swept, open shed. Rolling back my collar and baring my arms I washed myself in the cool water, dashing it over my head until I gasped, and then stepping back, breathless and refreshed, I found the slim girl, Mary, at my elbow with a clean soft towel. As I stood wiping quietly I could smell the ambrosial odours from the kitchen. In all my life I never enjoyed a moment more than that, I think.
"Come in now," said the motherly Mrs. Stanley.
So we filed into the roomy kitchen, where an older girl, called Kate, was flying about placing steaming dishes upon the table. There was also an older son, who had been at the farm chores. It was altogether a fine, vigorous, independent American family. So we all sat down and drew up our chairs. Then we paused a moment, and the father, bowing his head, said in a low voice:
"For all Thy good gifts, Lord, we thank Thee. Preserve us and keep us through another night."
I suppose it was a very ordinary farm meal, but it seems to me I never tasted a better one. The huge piles of new baked bread, the sweet farm butter, already delicious with the flavour of new grass, the bacon and eggs, the potatoes, the rhubarb sauce, the great plates of new, hot gingerbread and, at the last, the custard pie--a great wedge of it, with fresh cheese. After the first ravenous appetite of hardworking men was satisfied, there came to be a good deal of lively conversation. The girls had some joke between them which Ben was trying in vain to fathom. The older son told how much milk a certain Alderney cow had given, and Mr. Stanley, quite changed now as he sat at his own table from