When the old Squire and grandmother Ruth came away the shadows at the Sylvester farm had visibly lifted, and life was resuming its normal course there. They had proceeded only a short distance on their homeward way, however, when they heard footsteps behind, and saw Rufus hastening after them bareheaded. "Tell me, Squire, what d'ye think I ought to do about that--what I done once?" he cried. "Well, Rufus," the old Squire replied, "that is a matter you must settle with your own conscience. Since you ask me, I should say that, if the wrong you did can be righted in any way, you had better try to right it." "I will. I can. That's what I will do!" he exclaimed. "I feel sure you will," the old Squire said; and Rufus went back, looking much relieved. "Did you ever find out just what it was that Sylvester had done?" I asked. "Well, never exactly," the old Squire replied, smiling. "But I made certain surmises. Less than a fortnight after my talk with Rufus our neighbors, the Wilburs, were astonished one morning to find that during the night a full barrel of salt pork had been set on their porch by the kitchen door. Every mark had been carefully scraped off the barrel, but on the top head were the words, printed with a lead pencil, 'This is yourn and I am sorry.' "Fourteen years before, the Wilburs had lost a large hog very mysteriously. At that time domestic animals were allowed to run about much more freely than at present, and they often strayed along the highway. Sylvester was always in poor circumstances; and I believe that Wilbur's hog came along the road by night and that Rufus was tempted to make way with it privately and to conceal all traces of the theft. "In spite of the words on the head of the barrel, Mr. Wilbur was in some doubt what to do with the pork and asked my advice. I told him that if I were in his place I should keep it and say nothing. But I didn't tell him of my talk with Sylvester about the unpardonable sin," the old gentleman added, smiling. "That was hardly a proper subject for gossip." CHAPTER XV THE CANTALOUPE COAXER Every spring at the old farm we used to put in a row of hills for cantaloupes and another for watermelons. But, truth to say, our planting melons, like our efforts to raise peaches and grapes, was always more or less of a joke, for frosts usually killed the vines before the melons were half grown. Nevertheless, spring always filled us with fresh hope that the summer would prove warm, and that frosts would hold off until October. But we never really raised a melon fit for the table until the old Squire and Addison invented the "haymaker."