id as much to Joel.

"Beans," I said, "must be raised. Much of life must be spent hoeing
the beans. But I am going to ask myself: 'Is it _mere_ beans that I am
hoeing? And is it the _whole_ of me that is hoeing the beans?'"

"Well," he replied, "you settle down on that farm of yours as I settled
on mine, and I 'll tell you what answer you 'll get to them questions.
There ain't no po'try about farmin'. God did n't intend there should
be--as I see it."

"Now, that is n't the way I see it at all. This is God's earth,--and
there could n't be a better one."

"Of course there could n't, but there was one once."

"When?" I asked, astonished.

"In the beginning."

"You mean the Garden of Eden?"

"Just that."

"Why, man, this earth, this farm of yours, is the Garden of Eden."

"But it says God drove him out of the Garden and, what's more, it says
He made him farm for a livin', don't it?"

"That's what it says," I replied.

"Well, then, as I see it, that settles it, don't it? God puts a man on
a farm when he ain't fit for anything else. 'Least, that's the way I
see it. That's how I got here, I s'pose, and I s'pose that's why I
stay here."

"But," said I, "there's another version of that farm story."

"Not in the Bible?" he asked, now beginning to edge away, for it was
not often that I could get him so near to books as this. Let me talk
books with Joel Moore and the talk lags. Farming and neighboring are
Joel's strong points, not books. He is a general farmer and a kind of
universal neighbor (that being his specialty); on neighborhood and farm
topics his mind is admirably full and clear.

"That other version is in the Bible, right along with the one you've
been citing--just before it in Genesis."

He faced me squarely, a light of confidence in his eye, a ring of
certainty, not to say triumph, in his tones:--

"You 're sure of that, Professor?"

"Reasonably."

"Well, I 'm not a college man, but I 've read the Bible. Let's go in
and take a look at Holy Writ on farmin',"--leading the way with
alacrity into the house.

"My father was a great Bible man down in Maine," he went on. "Let me
raise a curtain. This was his," pointing to an immense family Bible,
with hand-wrought clasps, that lay beneath the plush family album, also
clasped, on a frail little table in the middle of the parlor floor.

The daylight came darkly through the thick muslin draperies at the
window and fell in a faint line acr