return from the
South had come to each almost alike. These men might have been members
of the same rustic household, they knew each other's history so well.

They were sitting on a low wooden bench at the left of the store door
as you went in. People were coming and going on their Saturday night
errands,--the post-office was in Barton's store,--but the friends
talked on eagerly, without being interrupted, except by an occasional
nod of recognition. They appeared to take no notice at all of the
neighbors whom they saw oftenest. It was a most beautiful evening; the
two great elms were almost half in leaf over the blacksmith's shop
which stood across the wide road. Farther along were two small
old-fashioned houses and the old white church, with its pretty belfry
of four arched sides and a tiny dome at the top. The large cockerel on
the vane was pointing a little south of west, and there was still
light enough to make it shine bravely against the deep blue eastern
sky. On the western side of the road, near the store, were the
parsonage and the storekeeper's modern house, which had a French roof
and some attempt at decoration, which the long-established Barlow
people called gingerbread-work, and regarded with mingled pride and
disdain. These buildings made the tiny village called Barlow Plains.
They stood in the middle of a long narrow strip of level ground. They
were islanded by green fields and pastures. There were hills beyond;
the mountains themselves seemed very near. Scattered about on the hill
slopes were farmhouses, which stood so far apart, with their clusters
of out-buildings, that each looked lonely, and the pine woods above
seemed to besiege them all. It was lighter on the uplands than it was
in the valley, where the three men sat on their bench, with their
backs to the store and the western sky.

"Well, here we be 'most into June, an' I 'ain't got a bush-bean above
ground," lamented Henry Merrill.

"Your land's always late, ain't it? But you always catch up with the
rest on us," Asa Brown consoled him. "I've often observed that your
land, though early planted, was late to sprout. I view it there's a
good week's difference betwixt me an' Stover an' your folks, but come
first o' July we all even up."

"'Tis just so," said John Stover, taking his pipe out of his mouth, as
if he had a good deal more to say, and then replacing it, as if he had
changed his mind.

"Made it extry hard having that long wet spell. C