blue eyes and pink and white complexion was
setting the table with great precision. She smiled broadly as Bradley
put his finger to his lips and crept toward Mrs. Brown, who gave a
great start as she felt the clasp of his arm.

"Gracious sakes alive! Bradley Talcott!"

"Did I scare yeh?" he inquired, smiling. "Where's the Judge?"

She looked at him fondly as he held her a moment in his arms.

"He's out by the well--I think he's at work at something, for I've
heard him swearing and groaning out there."

Bradley found the Judge weeding a bed of onions. He had a couple of
folded newspapers under his knees and was in his shirt-sleeves. He
looked like a felon condemned for life to hard manual labor.

"Judge, how are you?" called Bradley.

The Judge looked up with a scowling brow. "Hello, Brad." He wiped his
hand on his thigh and rose with a groan to shake hands. "I'm slavin'
again. Mrs. Brown insists on my working on the garden. How's Congress?"

"Piratical as ever. Nothing doing that ought to be done. How's
everything here?"

The Judge put on his coat; "I guess I'll quit for this time," he said,
referring to the onions. "Let's wash up for breakfast."

They washed at the kitchen sink as usual. Mrs. Brown watched Bradley
with maternal pleasure as he hung his coat on a nail and went about in
his shirt-sleeves scrubbing his face and combing his hair.

"It's good to see you around again, Bradley."

"Well, it seems good to me. Seems like old times to sit down here to
your cooking with the kitchen door open and the chickens singing."

"We're all right in this county," said the Judge, referring back to
politics; "but as I wrote you, it aint all clear sailing. We've got
work to do. I've called the Convention at Cedarville, in order to keep
some useful people in the field. We'll take dinner with old Jake
Schlimgen--he's a power with the Germans."

Bradley avoided political talk as much as possible, but when on the
street there seemed nothing else to talk about. Councill and Ridings
assured him he was all right in the eastern part of the county, and
under their flattery he grew quite cheerful. Their simple, honest
admiration did him good.

On the day named, Bradley and the Judge drove off up the road in a
one-horse buggy. The Judge talked spasmodically; Bradley was silent,
looking about him with half-shut eyes. The wheat had clothed the brown
fields; crows were flying through the soft mist that dimmed the light
of th