ggin' to go into the
duck and chicken business for months? With eggs near a dollar a dozen
maybe it would be a good scheme. And if we go in for poultry, why not
have all kinds, turkeys as well?"

So a few days later I put it up to him. Leon shakes his head. "The
chickens and the ducks, yes; but the turkey----" Here he shrugs his
shoulders desperate. "Je ne connais pas."

"You jennie what?" says I. "Ah, come, Leon, don't be a quitter."

He explains that the ways of our national bird are a complete mystery to
him. He'd as soon think of tryin' to hatch out ostriches or canaries. So
for the time being we pass up the turkeys and splurge heavy on cacklers
and quackers. Between him and Joe they fixed up part of the old carriage
shed as a poultry barracks and with a mile or so of nettin' they fenced
off a run down to the little pond. And by the middle of August we had
all sorts of music to wake us up for an early breakfast. I nearly
laughed a rib loose watchin' them baby ducks waddle around solemn, every
one with that cut-up look in his eye. Say, they're born comedians, ducks
are. I'll bet if you could translate that quack-quack patter of theirs
you'd get lines that would be a reg'lar scream on the big time circuit.

And then along in the fall we begun gettin' acquainted with our new
neighbors that had taken that cute little stucco cottage halfway down
to the station from us. The Basil Pynes, a young English couple, we
found out they were. Course, Vee started it by callin' and followin'
that up by a donation of some of our garden truck. Pretty soon we were
swappin' visits reg'lar.

I can't say I was crazy over 'em. She's a little mouse of a woman, big
eyed and quiet, but Vee seems to like her. Pyne, he's a tall, slim gink
with stooped shoulders and so short sighted that he has to wear extra
thick eyeglasses. He'd come over to work for some book publishin' house
but it seems he wrote things himself. He'd landed one book and was
pluggin' away on another; not a novel, I understands, but something
different.

"Huh!" says I to Vee. "No wonder he had to go into the lit'ry game, with
that monicker hung on him. Basil Pyne! The worst of it is, he looks it,
too."

"Now, Torchy!" protests Vee. "I'm sure you'll find him real interesting
when you know him better."

As usual, she's right. Anyway, it turns out that Basil has his good
points. For one thing he's the most entertaining listener I ever talked
to. Maybe you know the kind.