ther live on bread and milk and
keep my farm than make money anywhere else. I guess I'll have to give
it all up, though, and pull out, but it's like rooting up one of the
old oaks in the meadow lot. The fact is, Tom, I've been fooled into one
of the worst scrapes I've got into yet."

"I see how it is," said Tom heartily and complacently, "you want a
practical, foresighted man to talk straight at you for an hour or two
and clear up the fog you're in. You study and brood over little things
out there alone until they seem mountains which you can't get over
nohow, when, if you'd take one good jump out, they'd be behind you.
Now, you've got to stay and take a bite with me, and then we'll light
our pipes and untangle this snarl. No backing out! I can do you more
good than all the preachin' you ever heard. Hey, there, Bill!"
shouting to one of the paupers who was detailed for such work, "take
this team to the barn and feed 'em. Come in, come in, old feller!
You'll find that Tom Watterly allus has a snack and a good word for an
old crony."

Holcroft was easily persuaded, for he felt the need of cheer, and he
looked up to Tom as a very sagacious, practical man. So he said,
"Perhaps you can see farther into a millstone than I can, and if you
can show me a way out of my difficulties you'll be a friend sure
enough."

"Why, of course I can. Your difficulties are all here and here,"
touching his bullet head and the region of his heart. "There aint no
great difficulties in fact, but, after you've brooded out there a week
or two alone, you think you're caught as fast as if you were in a bear
trap. Here, Angy," addressing his wife, "I've coaxed Holcroft to take
supper with us. You can hurry it up a little, can't you?"

Mrs. Watterly gave their guest a cold, limp hand and a rather frigid
welcome. But this did not disconcert him. "It's only her way," he had
always thought. "She looks after her husband's interests as mine did
for me, and she don't talk him to death."

This thought, in the main, summed up Mrs. Watterly's best traits.

She was a commonplace, narrow, selfish woman, whose character is not
worth sketching. Tom stood a little in fear of her, and was usually
careful not to impose extra tasks, but since she helped him to save and
get ahead, he regarded her as a model wife.

Holcroft shared in his opinion and sighed deeply as he sat down to
supper. "Ah, Tom!" he said, "you're a lucky man. You've got a wife
that