ely stuffed light, dry sticks into the stove box, and
then lifted the lid of a boiling kettle to jab a fork into the potatoes
to see if they were done. The Chandler larder was reduced to the point
where Imogene in her cooking had to substitute things that would do for
things that tasted good.

Chandler, in from the field, filled a tin washbasin at the tank, set it
on a cracker box, and proceeded to clean up for supper. He rolled his
sleeves up far above his elbows and scrubbed all the visible parts of
his body from the top of his bald head to the shoulder blade under the
loose collar of his open-necked shirt. About the only two habits from
his old life that clung to the ex-professor were his use of big words
and soap.

Chandler sat down at the little board table, also out in the open. It
was after sundown and the heat was beginning to abate. As Imogene
poured coffee into the pint tin cup beside his plate she looked down at
him with protective admiration.

"Dad, I'm proud of you. You've got a tan that would be the envy of an
African explorer; and you are building up a muscle, too; you are almost
as good a man in the field as a Chinese coolie--really better than a
Mexican."

"It has been my observation," said the ex-professor, tackling the
boiled potatoes with a visible appetite, "that when a man quits the
scholarly pursuits he instinctively becomes an agriculturist. Business
is anathema to me; but I must confess that it gives me pleasure to
watch the germination of the seed, and to behold the flower and
fruitage of the soil."

Imogene laughed. "It is the fruitage that I'm fond of--especially when
it is a bale to the acre. And it is going to make that this year or
more; I never saw a finer field of cotton."

"It is doing very well," Chandler admitted with pride. "Yet, ah,
perhaps there is one field better, certainly as good, and that is the
American's north of here; the person you referred to as a fiddler."

"Daddy," and under the tone of raillery was a trace of wistfulness,
"we've lived like Guinea Negroes here for three years, and yet I
believe you like it. I don't believe you'd go back right now as
professor of Sanskrit at Zion College."

The little professor did not reply, but remarked as he held out the cup
for another pint of coffee:

"I notice I sleep quite soundly out here, even when the weather is
excessively hot."

The girl smiled and felt fully justified in the change she had forced
in