This man was now standing his full height for his family to admire. He was one I too could not help admiring. He had an open sunburned face, and I thought that behind it there was a non-scheming mind, that had attained good fortune beyond the lot of most of the simple. He was worth the dressing up the family had done for him, and almost worthy of Gretchen’s extra crisp hair ribbons. His wife put her arms around his neck and whispered something, evidently about me. He watched me over his shoulder as much as to say:-- “And so it’s a stray dog wants shelter? No objections.” He unwrapped his package. It was an extraordinary doll, with truly truly hair, and Gretchen-Cecilia had to give him seven kisses and almost cry before he surrendered it. He pulled off his boots and threw them in the corner, then paddled up stairs and came down in his shoes. For no reason at all Gretchen-Cecilia and her mother chased him around the kitchen table with a broom and a feather duster, and then out on to the back porch. VI CONFERENCES The grandfather called me into the front room and handed me a book. “Yer a schol-ar. What do you think of that?” It was a history of the county. The frontispiece was a portrait of Judge Somebody. But the book naturally opened at about the tenth page, on an atrocious engraving of this goodly old man and his not ill-looking wife. He breathed easier when I found it. It was plainly a basis of family pride. I read the inscription. “So you two are the oldest inhabitants?” I asked. “The oldest per-pet-ual in-habitants. I was born in this coun-ty and have nev-er left it. My wife is some young-er, but she has nev-er left it, since she married me.” Even the old lady grew civil. She tapped a brooch near her neck. “They gave me this breast-pin at the last old-settlers’ picnic.” The old man continued: “All the old farm is still here in our hands, but mostly rented. It brings something, something. Our big income is from my son’s well-digging. He never speculates and he makes money.” It seemed a part of the old man’s pride to have even the passing stranger realize they were well-fixed. In a furtive attempt to do justice to their station in life they had a tall clock in the corner, quite new and beautiful. And, as I discovered later, there was up stairs a handsome bath-room. The rest of that new house was clean and white, but helplessly Spartan. The old folk were called to the back porch. At the same time I heard the mother say, “Show the man your doll.” And in came the little daughter like thistledown.