epy tones, enunciated the noise
generally translated as "cheep!"

I leaped into the air.

"Hey! what's the matter down there?" called John from his room above
mine.

"Oh, nothing," I answered, "except that I accidentally bumped my head
against the ceiling."

The next morning I went out on the porch and looked at the mountains.
There were forty-seven of them in sight. I shuddered, went into the
big hall sitting room of the house, selected "Pancoast's Family
Practice of Medicine" from a bookcase, and began to read. John came
in, took the book away from me, and led me outside. He has a farm of
three hundred acres furnished with the usual complement of barns,
mules, peasantry, and harrows with three front teeth broken off. I had
seen such things in my childhood, and my heart began to sink.

Then John spoke of alfalfa, and I brightened at once. "Oh, yes," said
I, "wasn't she in the chorus of--let's see--"

"Green, you know," said John, "and tender, and you plow it under after
the first season."

"I know," said I, "and the grass grows over her."

"Right," said John. "You know something about farming, after all."

"I know something of some farmers," said I, "and a sure scythe will
mow them down some day."

On the way back to the house a beautiful and inexplicable creature
walked across our path. I stopped irresistibly fascinated, gazing
at it. John waited patiently, smoking his cigarette. He is a modern
farmer. After ten minutes he said: "Are you going to stand there
looking at that chicken all day? Breakfast is nearly ready."

"A chicken?" said I.

"A White Orpington hen, if you want to particularize."

"A White Orpington hen?" I repeated, with intense interest. The fowl
walked slowly away with graceful dignity, and I followed like a child
after the Pied Piper. Five minutes more were allowed me by John, and
then he took me by the sleeve and conducted me to breakfast.

After I had been there a week I began to grow alarmed. I was sleeping
and eating well and actually beginning to enjoy life. For a man in
my desperate condition that would never do. So I sneaked down to the
trolley-car station, took the car for Pineville, and went to see one
of the best physicians in town. By this time I knew exactly what to do
when I needed medical treatment. I hung my hat on the back of a chair,
and said rapidly:

"Doctor, I have cirrhosis of the heart, indurated arteries,
neurasthenia, neuritis, acute indigestion, and conva