"Good morning, Mrs. Stillwater."
"Good morning, Glen; how's your mother?"
"Well, thanks. Sends her love, and father's quite his old self."
"Who cured him?" said Stillwater.
"He was getting to be a regular hypochondriac. We compared our symptoms; they were about alike. I constitute myself my own doctor. I buy a farm, and a pretty thing it is, too. I'll be wabashed, if he don't go and do the same."
"Ah, but father happened to have his farm, Mr. Stillwater," said the young fellow, laughing. "It's been neglected for years. It's not a model farm like this, but we're getting it into shape." He looked around, as though he missed something or someone.
"Say, Glen, what do you think of this?" Stillwater proudly exhibited his potato. Glen examined it with professional interest. "You couldn't do any better than that, could you?"
"We don't try. You know what father says, 'Farmin' ain't no fad with my neighbor, Stillwater.'—I'll just fetch a drink from the well."
He went off with a long, swinging stride, and, returning in a moment with a tin cup in his hand, seated himself at Mrs. Stillwater's feet, on the step of the farm-house porch.
"Fine tasting water, eh?" said Stillwater watching him. "Cold as ice; it's a fine thing to have a spring like that, right on your ground."