rye, which always brought a better price than the regular
crop. Then, as the idea expanded, I said that with our few acres we
could cultivate intensively and raise seed crops entirely. That would be
something really aristocratic in the farming line. We would begin with
seed rye and wheat, of which latter grain I had put in a modest sowing.
Next year we would go in for seed potatoes, oats, corn, and the like. We
could have a neat sign on the stone wall in front, announcing our line
of goods. Very likely buyers would come from a considerable distance for
them--I had myself driven seven miles with Westbury for the seed rye. A
business like that would grow. We could go in for new varieties of
things, and in time set up a shipping-station, with a packing-house and
a bookkeeper. No doubt Henderson and Hiram Sibley and Ferry and those
other seed magnates had begun in some such modest way.

I don't think Elizabeth responded entirely to this particular
enthusiasm, and I could see that she was doubtful about the sign in
front, but on a winy, windless November day, warmed by a mellow sun, all
things seem possible, and she graciously admitted that one never could
tell--that stranger things had happened. Then we came to our small
wheat-field, and the new seed enthusiasm received a slight check.
Westbury had advised against wheat. He said it did not do well in that
section. This, I had insisted, must be a superstition, and I had gone to
considerable expense to have the ground properly prepared, and to obtain
the best seed.

The result, as it appeared now, was not promising. Here and there a
spindling blade had come through, and some of those seemed about to turn
into grass. I do not know why wheat acts like that in Connecticut. I did
not follow up the scientific phases of the case, but I confided to
Elizabeth that perhaps, after all, we would not announce "Seed Wheat"
on the neat sign planned for the outer wall.

Late October winds had changed the aspect of our world. Our woods were
no longer deep, vast, and mysterious. We could see straight through them
and read their most hidden secrets. We discovered one day, what we had
never suspected, that at one place our brook turned and came back almost
to the road. All that summer it had supped silently through that brushy
corner which for some reason we had never penetrated. We discovered,
too, a little to one side of our former excursions, a rocky acclivity, a
place of pretty hemlock-t