"Daddy," she had come up to where the little bald-headed man was plowing—throwing up the ridges, "don't you like spring?"
The ex-professor stopped the team, looked at her through his glasses, then glanced around the field at the grass and weeds and early plants that were up.
"I believe," he said, mildly, "that we are approaching the vernal equinox. But I had not observed before the gradual unfoldment of vegetation which we have come to associate in our minds with spring."
"Oh, daddy, daddy," she laughed deliciously, and leaned over the handle of the plow and pulled his ear. "You funny, funny man. Why, it's spring, it's spring! Don't you feel it in your bones? Don't you love the whole world and everybody?"
Professor Chandler seriously contemplated the skyline, where the sunlight showed red on the distant buttes. "I should say, daughter, that it does give one a feeling of kinship with nature. I fancy the early Greeks felt it."
"I fancy they did," said Imogene, "especially if they were in love."
"In love?" The professor brought his spectacles around to his daughter questioningly.
"With everything," she said, laughing. "Daddy, I'm awfully glad we are back to the soil—instead of back to the Greeks."
"I am not discontent with our environment." And the little professor plowed on. She smiled maternally at his back. And then two swift tears sprang to her eyes. Tender tears.
"Dear old daddy. It has been good for him. He would have dried up and blown away in that little old college."