of Waterloo--and it may
be. I think that Napoleon was sure to lose to Wellington sooner or later,
and therefore the words "fate of Europe" in the last paragraph should be
understood as modified by "for a while." But this story may change the
world permanently. We will not discuss that, if you please. What I am
endeavoring to make plain is that this history would never have been
written if a farmer's daughter had not said "Humph!" to her father's hired
man.

Of course she never said it as it is printed. People never say "Humph!" in
that way. She just closed her lips tight in the manner of people who have
a great deal to say and prefer not to say it, and--I dislike to record
this of a young lady who has been "off to school," but truthfulness
compels--she grunted through her little nose the ordinary "Humph!" of
conversational commerce, which was accepted at its face value by the
farm-hand as an evidence of displeasure, disapproval, and even of
contempt. Things then began to happen as they never would have done if the
maiden hadn't "Humphed!" and this is a history of those happenings.

As I have said, it may be more important than Waterloo. _Uncle Tom's
Cabin_ was, and I hope--I am just beginning, you know--to make this a much
greater book than _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. And it all rests on a "Humph!"
Holmes says,

"Soft is the breath of a maiden's 'Yes,'
Not the light gossamer stirs with less."

but what bard shall rightly sing the importance of a maiden's "Humph!"
when I shall have finished telling what came of what Jennie Woodruff said
to Jim Irwin, her father's hired man?

Jim brought from his day's work all the fragrances of next year's meadows.
He had been feeding the crops. All things have opposite poles, and the
scents of the farm are no exception to the rule. Just now, Jim Irwin
possessed in his clothes and person the olfactory pole opposite to the
new-mown hay, the fragrant butter and the scented breath of the lowing
kine--perspiration and top-dressing.

He was not quite so keenly conscious of this as was Jennie Woodruff. Had
he been so, the glimmer of her white pique dress on the bench under the
basswood would not have drawn him back from the gate. He had come to the
house to ask Colonel Woodruff about the farm work, and having received
instructions to take a team and join in the road work next day, he had
gone down the walk between the beds of four o'clocks and petunias to the
la