r
that way and so I went over to see what was goin' on. Well, I found
out." Mr. Wilson paused impressively and glanced around at us. Joe was
listening with such absorbed attention that his work had slipped
unheeded from his hands and Ralph had again secured the harness needle
and was awkwardly re-stringing his imitation sleigh bells. "What was
it?" I asked.

"Why, you see, I'd plumb forgot about the alfalfa hay, but the horses
had remembered, and they nosed through the fruit until they come to
it, and they hadn't lost a minute's time, either. When the hay'd given
out in one place they'd worked through at another until they struck
bed rock again. The whole load was just a mass of tomato jam; the
juice was running out of the box in a stream, and the horses were red
with it from hoof to forelock. There wasn't a bushel of whole fruit
left. I jerked out the tailboard and dumped the mess on the ground,
while about forty men stood around just yellin' and hootin' with
delight. They got more pleasure out of it than they could possibly 'a'
got from eatin' the tomatoes. The cook came out of his little tent
alongside the big dining tent, to see what the racket was about, and
when he got his eyes on the fruit he was powerful mad. He said he'd
'a' given a dollar and a half a bushel for the load. He wanted me to
promise to come with another load the next day, but I'd had enough of
fruit raisin'--'specially when the horses did the heft of the
raisin'--I wouldn't 'a' faced that yellin' crowd again for a hundred
dollars. No, sir! I come right straight home, and I sent word 'round
among the neighbors to come and help themselves to all the tomatoes
they could lug home; what they didn't take the frost did, and that was
the end of my experiment in fruit raising."

"It was just too bad!" I exclaimed, feeling that I ought to say
something sympathetic.

"Oh, I don't know," returned our neighbor, in his comfortable way. "It
was all my fault. A man's got to keep his wits about him, no matter
what he undertakes to do, and I left mine at home that day. My wife'll
think I'm lost, wits and all, if I stay much longer, that's a fact."

He rose to his feet, and, after bidding us a cordial farewell, started
for the door. Then the pail on the floor caught his eye to remind him
that his intractable wits had again strayed. "Well, I declare for it!
I come nigh forgetting what I stopped for. Seems like a good way to
come for milk, doesn't it? We had comp