out for the
hills]

Fergus saw Nort and Anthy come in together, and knew without being told.
He sat firmly on his stool until they went out again, so absorbed in
their own happiness that they never noticed him at all, and then he
climbed down and took off his apron deliberately. He felt about absently
for his friendly pipe, put it slowly in his mouth, but did not light it.
He stuck his small battered volume of Robert Burns's poems in his
pocket--and going out of the back door struck out for the hills. The
next morning he was back on his stool again just as usual. It would have
been impossible to print the _Star_ of Hempfield without Fergus
MacGregor.

* * * * *

On a June day I finish this narrative and lay down my pen.

An hour ago I walked along the lane to the top of my pasture to take a
look at the distant town. In the meadows the red clover is in full
blossom, the bobolinks are hovering and singing over the low spots, and
the cattle are feeding contentedly in all the pastures. I have never
seen the wild raspberry bushes setting such a wealth of fruit, nor the
blackberries so full of bloom. The grass is nearly ripe for the cutting.

At the top of the hill I stood for a long time looking off across the
still countryside toward the town.... It is here, after all, that I
belong!

I come to the end of the narrative of the _Star_ of Hempfield with an
indescribable sadness of regret. So much I proposed myself when I set
out to write the story of my friends; and so very little have I
accomplished! I can see now that I have not taken all of Hempfield--no,
not the half of it--nor even all of my friends; but perhaps I have taken
all that I could, all that was mine.

As I came down the hill my mind went out warmly toward the
printing-office of the _Star_ of Hempfield, and I thought of the
pleasant old garden in front of it, of the curious bird house, built
like a miniature Parthenon at the gable end, where the wrens were now
rearing their broods, I thought of Dick, the canary, and of Tom, the
cat, sleeping comfortably, as I so often saw him, in a patch of
sunlight on the floor--and then, like a great wave of friendly warmth,
came the full realization of my friends there in the office of the
_Star_ of Hempfield, so that I seemed to see them living before my eyes.
I thought of how we had worked together for so many months, how we had
enjoyed one another, had been thrust apart and drawn to