several attempts to join in their conversation, and though
Wallace lent him all possible aid Miss Lawrence effectually discouraged
LaHume's participation. He reminded me of a boy making ineffectual
attempts to "catch on behind" a swift-moving sleigh, and who is finally
tumbled on his head for his pains.

Mrs. Bishop is famous the country round as a cook, and she excelled
herself that afternoon. Bishop is a crank on truck gardening, and the
vegetables served would have taken prizes in any exhibit. A delicious
soup was followed by a baked sea trout--I must not forget to ask Mrs.
Bishop how she made that sauce.

I wonder why it is that the most skilled hotel chefs cannot fry spring
chicken so as to faintly imitate the culinary wonders attained by a
capable housewife?

"I want to ask you a question, Mrs. Bishop," said Mr. Harding, after he
had made a pretense of refusing a third helping of fried chicken. "Did
you really raise these chickens on this farm?"

Mrs. Bishop smiled and said they did.

"I don't believe it," he returned. "If the truth were known they lit
down here from heaven, and Jim Bishop nailed them and you cooked them."

I was ashamed of Chilvers. He ate seven ears of green corn and boasted
of it, but I will admit I did not know it was possible to produce corn
such as was served at that farmhouse dinner. The crisp sliced cucumbers,
the ice-cold tomatoes, the succulent hearts of lettuce, the steaming
dishes of string beans, summer squash, and green peas--it makes me
hungry as I write of that simple but excellent feast.

I thought as we sat there of the democracy of that little gathering.
There was Harding, the multi-millionaire railway magnate, in his hickory
shirt; the fastidious and monocled Carter with his wealth and boasted
New England ancestry; Miss Lawrence, an heiress in whose veins flowed
the purest blood of the southern aristocracy; Mr. and Mrs. Bishop, plain
honest folk from 'way down east in Maine; and the unknown Wallace,
driven no doubt by stress of poverty from the hills of his beloved
country--there we all were meeting one another as equals, enjoying the
bounties Nature has so lavishly bestowed on her children.

I caught Miss Harding's eye, and she smiled as if in sympathy with my
wandering thoughts. It takes a remarkably pretty young woman to lose
none of her charm while eating green corn off the cob, but Miss Harding
triumphantly stands that test. She was talking to Marshall, who is so