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“I went across the road to Martin’s and got a chance to ‘phone into Jackson, and in about twenty minutes I was whirlin’ over the road in a red-cushioned automobile that ran smooth as oil, and inside of half an hour I was rollin’ through McRae’s gate.

“Now, up to this time, I hadn’t any notion of a program as to Nancy; I was all took up with gettin’ ahead of dad. But when I found myself in front of old McRae, more down at the heel and raggeder in the seat than ever, I was a whole lot set back. What was I to say to him and to her? I didn’t know. He was gappin’ at me with the eyes of an owl, and so I opened up.

“‘I see you have no lightnin’-rods?’ I says. ‘In this day and age of the world you can’t afford to go without lightnin’-rods.’

“He wa’n’t no fool, if he did wear rats in his hair, and he says:

“‘I thought you was a cream-separator man. Are lightnin’-rods comin’ into style again?’

“‘My kind is,’ I says.

“‘Well, the trade must be lookin’ up,’ he says, walkin’ round and round my machine and eyin’ it. ‘I’m thinkin’ of havin’ one of them wagons for haulin’ milk to town. Won’t you light out?’

“‘Don’t care if I do,’ I says, and out I rolled, feelin’ a little shaky.

“I was mighty anxious to see Nance by this time, but felt shy of askin’ about her.

“‘What is the latest kink in rods?’ asked the old cuss.

“‘These kind I sell,’ I says, ‘are the kind that catch and store the electricity in a tank down cellar. Durin’ a thunder-storm you can save up enough to rock the baby and run the churn for a week or two.’

“‘I want ‘o know,’ he says. ‘Well, we ‘ain’t got a baby and no churn–but mebbe it would run a cream-separator?’

“‘Sure it would.’

“All the time we was a-joshin’ this way he was a-studyin’ me–and finally he said:

“‘You can’t fool me, Ed. How are ye?’

“And we shook hands. I always liked the old cuss. He was a great reader–always talkin’ about Napoleon–he’d been a great man if he’d ever got off the farm and into something that required just his kind o’ brain-work.

“‘Come in,’ he says. ‘Nance will want to see you.’

“The minute he said that I had a queer feelin’ at the pit o’ my stummick–I did, sure thing. ‘It’s a little early for a call,’ I says, ‘and I ain’t in Sunday clothes.’

“‘That don’t matter,’ he says; ‘she’ll be glad to see you any time.’

“You’d ‘a’ thought I’d been gone eleven weeks instead of eleven years.

“Nance wasn’t a bit like her dad. She always looked shipshape, no matter what she was a-doin’. She was in the kitchen, busy as a gasoline-motor, when we busted through the door.

“‘Nance!’ the old man called out, ‘here’s Ed Hatch.’

“She didn’t do any fancy stunts. She just straightened up and looked at me kind o’ steady for a minute, and then came over to shake hands.

“‘I’m glad to see you back, Ed,’ she says.”

The stress of this meeting was still over him, as I could see and hear, and I waited for him to go on.

“She hadn’t changed as much as mother. She was older and sadder and kind o’ subdued, and her hand felt calloused, but I’d ‘a’ known her anywhere. She was dressed in a blue calico dress, but she was sure handsome still, and I said to her:

“‘You need a change of climate,’ I says, ‘and a different kind of boss. Colorado’s where you ought to be,’ I went on.

“For half an hour I kept banterin’ her like that, and though she got pink now and then, she didn’t seem to understand–or if she did she didn’t let on. She stuck to her work whilst the old man and me watched her. Seein’ her going about that kitchen that way got me locoed. I always liked to watch mother in the kitchen–and Nance was a genuine housekeeper, I always knew that.