d off his hat was
hiding that smile of boundless content which comes only to him who
stretches his well body upon grass or soft stubble and feels the vigor
of the earth steal up and through him. "Why don't I do this oftener?"
Scarborough was saying to himself. "I must--and I shall, now that my
mind's more at ease."

A long afternoon of the toil that tires and vexes not, and at sundown
he was glad to ride home on top of the last wagon instead of walking as
he had intended. The supper-table was ready--was spread in the
dining-shed. They washed their hands and sunburnt arms and soused
their heads in cold water from the well, and sat, Scarborough at one
end, Gabbard at the other, the strapping sons and the "hands" down
either side. The whole meal was before them--huge platters of fried
chicken, great dishes full of beans and corn and potatoes; plates piled
high with hot corn bread, other plates of "salt-rising"; Mrs. Gabbard's
miraculous apple pies, and honey for which the plundered flowers might
still be mourning. Yesterday it would have seemed to Scarborough
dinner enough for a regiment. To-day--he thought he could probably eat
it all, and wished that he might try. To drink, there were coffee and
cider and two kinds of milk. He tried the buttermilk and kept on with
it.

"You must 'a' had a busy summer," said Gabbard. "This is the first
time you've been with us."

"Yes," Scarborough replied. "I did hope to get here for the threshing,
but I couldn't."

The threshing set them all off--it had been a record year; thirty-eight
bushels to the acre on the average, twenty-seven on the hillsides which
Gabbard had hesitated whether to "put in" or not. An hour after supper
Scarborough could no longer hold his eyes open. "Wake me with the
others," he said to Mrs. Gabbard, who was making up the "salt-rising"
yeast for the morrow's baking. "I'll have breakfast when they do."

"I reckon you've earned it," said Mrs. Gabbard. "Eph says you laid it
over 'em all to-day."

"Well, I guess I at least earned my supper," replied Scarborough. "And
I guess I ate it."

"You didn't do so bad, considerin'," Mrs. Gabbard admitted. "Nothin'
like livin' in town to take appetite away."

"That isn't all it takes away," said Scarborough, going on to his own
part of the house without explaining his remark. When his head touched
the pillow his brain instantly stopped the machinery. He needed no
croonings or dronings from the field