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“It was some walloping, too,” said Old Hundred, with a reminiscent grin. “It would be a good time now,” he added, “to swipe melons, if Betsy’s getting supper. Though I believe she had all those melon stems connected with an automatic burglar-alarm in the kitchen. She ought to have taken out a patent on that invention!”

He looked about him, first at his house, then at mine. “How small the orchard is now,” he mused. “The trees are like little old women. And look at Crow’s Nest–it used to be a hundred feet high.”

The oak he pointed at still bore in its upper branches the remains of our tree-top retreat, a rotted beam or two straddling a crotch. “Peter Pan should rebuild it,” said I. “I shall drop a line to Wendy. Do you still hesitate to turn over in bed?”

“Always,” Old Hundred confessed. “I do turn over now, but it was years before I could bring myself to do it. I wonder where we got that superstition that it brought bad luck? If we woke in the night, up in Crow’s Nest, and wanted to shift our positions, we got up and walked around the foot of the mattress, so we could lie on the other side without turning over. Remember?”

I nodded. Then the well-curb caught my eye. It was over the well we dug where old Solon Perkins told us to. Solon charged three dollars for the advice. He came with a forked elm twig, cut green, and holding the prongs tightly wrapped round his hands so that the base of the twig stuck out straight, walked back and fourth over the place, followed by my father and mother, and Old Hundred’s father and mother, and Cap’n Charles and Betsy, and all the boys for a mile around, silently watching for the miracle. Finally the base of the twig bent sharply down. “Dig there,” said Solon. He examined the twig to see if the bark was twisted. It was, so he added, “Bent hard. Won’t have ter dig more’n ten foot.” We dug twenty-six, but water came. And such water!

“I want some of that water,” said I. “I don’t want to go into the house; I don’t even know who lives in it now. But I must have some of that water.”

We went up to the well and lowered the bucket, which slid bounding down against the cool stones till it hit the depths with a dull splash. As we were drinking, an old man came peering out of the house. Old Hundred recognized him first.

“Well, Clarkie Poor, by all that’s holy!” he cried. “We’ve come to get our hair cut.”

Clarkson Poor blinked a bit before recognition came. “Yes,” he said, “I bought the old place a couple o’ year back, arter them city folks you sold it to got sick on it. Too fer off the trolley line for them. John’s house over yon some noo comers ‘a’ got. They ain’t changed it none. This is about the only part o’ town that ain’t changed, though. Most o’ the old folks is gone, too, and the young uns, like you chaps, all git ambitious fer the cities. I give up cuttin’ hair ’bout three year back–got kinder onsteady an’ cut too many ears.”

A sudden smile broke over Old Hundred’s face. “Clarkie,” he said, “you were always up on such things–is it rats or warts that you write a note to when you want ’em to go away?”

“Yes, it’s rats, isn’t it?” I cried, also reminded, for the first time, of our real quest.

“Why,” said Clarkie, “you must be sure to make the note very partic’lar perlite, and tell ’em whar to go. Don’t fergit that.”

“Yes, yes,” said we, “but is it warts or rats?”

“Well,” said Clarkie, “it’s both.”

We looked one at the other, and grinned rather sheepishly.

“Only thar’s a better way fer warts,” Clarkie went on. “I knew a boy once who sold his. That’s the best way. Yer don’t have actually to sell ’em. Just git another feller to say, ‘I’ll give yer five cents fer yer warts,’ and you say, ‘All right, they’re yourn,’ and then they go. Fact.”

We thanked him, and moved down to the road, declining his invitation to come into the house. Westward, the sun had gone down and left the sky a glowing amber and rose. The fields rolled their young green like a checkered carpet over the low hills–the sweet, familiar hills. For an instant, in the hush of gathering twilight, we stood there silent and bridged the years; wiping out the strife, the toil, the ambitions, we were boys again.

“Hark!” said Old Hundred, softly. Down through the orchard we heard the thin, sweet tinkle of a cow-bell. “There’s a boy behind, with the peeled switch,” he added, “looking dreamily up at the first star, and wishing on it–wishing for a lot of things he’ll never get. But I’m sure he isn’t barefoot. Let’s go.”

As we passed down the turnpike, between the rows of cheap frame houses, we saw, in the increasing dusk, the ruins of a lane, and the corner of a small, back-yard potato patch, that had been Kingman’s field. We hastened through the noisy, treeless village, and boarded the Boston train, rather cross for want of supper.

“I wonder,” said Old Hundred, as we moved out of the station, “whether we’d better go to Young’s or the Parker House?”