declared.

"But, Francis, a man must make some plans for himself. Asher may not
agree," Mrs. Aydelot spoke earnestly.

"How can our boy know as well as his father does what is best for him? He
must agree, that's all. We have gone over this matter often enough
together. I won't have any Jim Shirley in my family. He's gone away and
nobody knows where he is, just when his father needs him to take the care
of the tavern off his hands."

"What made Jim go away from Cloverdale?" Mrs. Aydelot asked.

"Nobody seems to know exactly. He left just before his brother, Tank,
married that Leigh girl up the Clover valley somewhere. But everything's
settled for Asher. He will be marrying one of the Cloverdale girls pretty
soon and stay right here in town. We'll take it up with him now. There's
no use waiting."

"And yet I wish we might wait till he speaks of it himself. Remember, he's
been doing his own thinking in the time he's been away," the mother
insisted.

Just then, Asher reached the corner of the door yard. Catching sight of
the two, he put his hands on the top of the paling fence, leaped lightly
over it, and came across to the veranda, where he sat down on the top
step.

"Just getting in from town? The place hasn't changed much, has it?" the
father declared.

"No, not much," Asher replied absently, looking out with unseeing eyes at
the lengthening woodland shadows, "a church or two more, some brick
sidewalk, and a few stores and homes--just added on, not improved. I miss
Jim Shirley everywhere. The older folks seem the same, but some of the
girls are pushing baby-carriages and the boys are getting round-shouldered
and droopy-jawed."

He drew himself up with military steadiness as he spoke.

"Well, you are glad to settle down anyhow," his father responded. "The old
French spirit of roving and adventure has had its day with you, and now
you will begin your life work."

"Yes, I'm done with fighting." Asher's lips tightened. "But what do you
call my life work, father?"

It was the eighth April after the opening of the Civil War. Asher had just
come home from two years of army service on the western plains. Few
changes had come to the little community; but to the young man, who eight
springtimes ago had gone out as a pink-cheeked drummer boy, the years had
been full of changes. He was now twenty-three, straight as an Indian, lean
and muscular as a veteran soldier. The fair, round cheeks of boyhood were
brown and ti