"I did n't intend to, but I must say that literature like this is enough to make a man a vegetarian. Look at that page for an old-fashioned New England Boiled Dinner! Such carrots. Really they look good enough to eat. I think I 'll plant some of those improved carrots; and some of these parsnips; and some—"
"You had better go get ready," she said, "and please put that big stick on the fire for me," drawing the lamp toward her, as she spoke, so that all of its green-shaded light fell over her—over the silver in her hair, with its red rose; over the pink and lacy thing that wrapped her from her sweet throat to the silver stars on her slippers.
"I'm not going to that Club!" I said. "I have talked myself for three hours to-day, attended two conferences, and listened to one address. There were three different societies for the general improving of things that met at the University halls to-day with big speakers from the ends of the earth. To-morrow night I address The First Century Club in the city after a dinner with the New England Teachers of English Monthly Luncheon Club—and I would like to know what we came out here in the woods for, anyhow?"
"If you are going—" She was speaking calmly.
"Going where?" I replied, picking up the seed catalogues to make room for myself on the couch. "Please look at this pumpkin! Think of what a jack-o'-lantern it would make for the boys! I am going to plant—"
"You 'll be cold," she said, rising and drawing a steamer rug up over me; then laying the open magazine across my shoulders while giving the pillow a motherly pull, she added, with a sigh of contentment:—
"Perhaps, if it had n't been for me, you might have been a great success with pumpkins or pigs—I don't know."
