quietly acquired an undivided interest in that
land. I may as well tell you first as last. I'm like you, Horace, I'm
reaching out in all directions."

I spoke in as serious a voice as I could command: the tone I use when I
sell potatoes. Horace's smile wholly disappeared. A city feller like me
was capable of anything!

"How's that?" he exclaimed sharply. "What do you mean? That field came
down to me from my grandfather Jamieson."

I continued to look at Horace with great calmness and gravity.

"Judging from what I now know of your title, Horace," said I, "neither
your grandfather Jamieson nor your father ever owned all of that field.
And I've now acquired that part of it, in fee simple, that neither they
nor you ever really had."

At this Horace began to look seriously worried. The idea that any one
could get away from him anything that he possessed, especially without
his knowledge, was terrible to him.

"What do you mean, Mr. Grayson?"

He had been calling me "David," but he now returned sharply to "Mister."
In our country when we "Mister" a friend something serious is about to
happen. It's the signal for general mobilization.

I continued to look Horace rather coldly and severely in the eye.

"Yes," said I, "I've acquired a share in that field which I shall not
soon surrender."

An unmistakable dogged look came into Horace's face, the look inherited
from generations of land-owning, home-defending, fighting ancestors.
Horace is New England of New England.

"Yes," I said, "I have already had two or three crops from that field."

"Huh!" said Horace. "I've cut the grass and I've cut the rowen every
year since you bin here. What's more, I've got the money fer it in the
bank."

He tapped his fingers on the top of the wall.

"Nevertheless, Horace," said I, "I've got my crops, also, from that
field, and a steady income, too."

"What crops?"

"Well, Eve just now been gathering in one of them. What do you think of
the value of the fleabane, and the daisies, and the yellow five-finger
in that field?"

"Huh!" said Horace.

"Well, I've just been cropping them. And have you observed the wind in
the grass--and those shadows along the southern wall? Aren't they
valuable?"

"Huh!" said Horace.

"I've rarely seen anything more beautiful," I said, "than this field
and the view across it--I'm taking that crop now, and later I shall
gather in the rowen of goldenrod and aster, and the red and yellow of
the map