d Mr. Dyer.

"Why should not we ask the 'grateful people'?" asked Jedidiah.

To explain what Jedidiah and his father meant, I shall have to tell how
it was Jedidiah came to have a Noah's Ark, and all about it, for it was
a little odd.

Jedidiah was the son of poor parents. His father lived in a small, neat
house, and owned a little farm. It was not much of a place; but he
worked hard, and raised vegetables upon it, mostly potatoes. But Mrs.
Dyer liked string-beans and peas; so they had a few of these, and
pumpkins, when the time came; but we have nothing to do with them at
present. If I began to tell you what Mrs. Dyer liked, it would take a
great while, because there are marrow-squashes and cranberry-beans,
though she did not care so much for tomatoes; but vegetables do help
out, and don't cost as much as butcher's meat, if you don't keep sheep;
but hens Mrs. Dyer did keep. It was the potatoes that were most
successful, for it was one summer when everybody's potatoes had failed.
They had all kinds of diseases, especially at Spinville, near which Mr.
Dyer lived. Some were rotten in the middle, some had specks outside;
some were very large and bad, some were small and worse; and in many
fields there were none at all. But Mr. Dyer's patch flourished
marvellously. So, after he had taken in all he wanted for himself, he
told his wife he was going to ask the people of Spinville to come and
get what they wanted.

"Now, Mr. Dyer!" said his wife. She did not say much else; but what she
meant was, that if he had any potatoes to spare, he had better sell them
than give them away. Mr. Dyer was a poor man; why should not he make a
little money?

But Mr. Dyer replied that he had no cart and horse to take the potatoes
to Spinville with, and no time either. He had agreed to mow the deacon's
off-lot, and he was not going to disappoint the deacon, even if he
should get a couple of dollars by it; and he wasn't going to let his
potatoes rot, when all Spinville was in want of potatoes. So Mr. Dyer
set to work, and printed in large letters on a sheet of paper these
words: "All persons in want of potatoes, apply to J. Dyer, Cranberry
Lane, Wednesday, the fifteenth, after seven o'clock, A.M. Gratis."

The last word was added after Mr. Dyer had pasted the notice against the
town hall of Spinville; for so many people came up to bother him with
questions as to how much he was going to ask for his potatoes, that he
was obliged to add this