ed away. The old woman followed him. "Do you believe he can
come back?" she asked.

His sharp eyes cut round at her, like the swing of a scythe. "An old log
may learn to float up-stream," he said. She stepped in front of him.
"You've done somethin' that you don't want known," she declared. "As
smart a man as you wouldn't come out here and work on a farm for
nothin'."

"I don't expect to work for nothing."

"Come into the house, Bill. Those women want to get acquainted with
you."

"Why don't they get acquainted with their husbands?"

"I know it," she replied, with a look, and in a younger eye the light
would have been a gleam of mischief, but with her it was a glint almost
of viciousness. "I know it. They are always after a curiosity. They've
got it into their heads that you've done some sort of deviltry, and they
want to talk to you. One of them said her husband was such a dear, dull
business man. And nearly all of them hate children."

"I hate a woman that hates children," Milford replied, and the old woman
said, "I know it."

Mrs. Blakemore, the tired George, and the tugging boy came into the
yard. The woman's eyes brightened when she saw Milford. It seemed that
the other women had commissioned her to sound his mysterious depth. His
keen eyes, his sharp-cut beard, a sort of sly unconcern marked him a
legitimate summer exploration. Men from the city came and went,
shop-keepers, tailors, machinists, lawyers, driveling of hard times and
the hope of a business revival, and no particular attention was paid to
them, but here was a man with a hidden history. Perhaps he was a
deserter from the regular army; doubtless he had killed an officer for
insulting him. This was a sweet morsel and they made a bon-bon of it.

"I hope you are not going just because we came," said Mrs. Blakemore to
Milford. "George, do take that rocker and sit down. You look so tired.
Go away, Bobbie. You are such a pest."

A straining voice in the sitting-room and the tin-pan tones of a piano
were hushed, and out upon the veranda came several women. Milford was
introduced to them. Some of them advanced with a smile, and some hung
back in a sweet dread of danger. Milford sat down on a corner of the
veranda with his feet on the ground. A wagon load of beer-drinkers,
singing lustily, drove past the house. From the lake came the report of
a gun, some one firing at a loon. There seemed to be no law to enforce
respect for the day which the Puritan c