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where once only the wind wrote its story. He had encouraged new
settlers to take up homesteads, urged on courtships, lent young
fellows the money to marry on, seen families grow and prosper;
until he felt a little as if all this were his own enterprise.
The changes, not only those the years made, but those the seasons
made, were interesting to him.

People recognized Nat Wheeler and his cart a mile away. He sat
massive and comfortable, weighing down one end of the slanting
seat, his driving hand lying on his knee. Even his German
neighbours, the Yoeders, who hated to stop work for a quarter of
an hour on any account, were glad to see him coming. The
merchants in the little towns about the county missed him if he
didn't drop in once a week or so. He was active in politics;
never ran for an office himself, but often took up the cause of a
friend and conducted his campaign for him.

The French saying, "Joy of the street, sorrow of the home," was
exemplified in Mr. Wheeler, though not at all in the French way.
His own affairs were of secondary importance to him. In the early
days he had homesteaded and bought and leased enough land to make
him rich. Now he had only to rent it out to good farmers who
liked to work--he didn't, and of that he made no secret. When he
was at home, he usually sat upstairs in the living room, reading
newspapers. He subscribed for a dozen or more--the list included
a weekly devoted to scandal--and he was well informed about what
was going on in the world. He had magnificent health, and illness
in himself or in other people struck him as humorous. To be sure,
he never suffered from anything more perplexing than toothache or
boils, or an occasional bilious attack.

Wheeler gave liberally to churches and charities, was always
ready to lend money or machinery to a neighbour who was short of
anything. He liked to tease and shock diffident people, and had
an inexhaustible supply of funny stories. Everybody marveled that
he got on so well with his oldest son, Bayliss Wheeler. Not that
Bayliss was exactly diffident, but he was a narrow gauge fellow,
the sort of prudent young man one wouldn't expect Nat Wheeler to
like.

Bayliss had a farm implement business in Frankfort, and though he
was still under thirty he had made a very considerable financial
success. Perhaps Wheeler was proud of his son's business acumen.
At any rate, he drove to town to see Bayliss several times a
week, went t