On the old farm there was a sprout of new life. At break of day the dozing idler heard a song afield; the hired man, going to milk the cows, the city man, snapping his watch, hastening to catch a train, saw the Westerner working, wet with dew. And when the evening's lamps were lighted, the wild notes of his cowboy song rang from the hillside. Farmers going to the village of a Saturday afternoon stopped at his fence to engage him in talk, but he answered their questions as he went on with his work. One day they heard him say to his hired man: "Go to the house, Mitchell, and rest a while. You are worn out." A man whose table was light, whose shipments of veal and poultry to town were heavy, and who had been requested to put a better quality of water into his milk, declared that he had lived too long and had too much experience of the world to be fooled by a man from the West. He had committed some crime--murder, no doubt--and Steve Hardy was censured for hauling him over from the station. This surmise reached the ears of Mrs. Stuvic. She waited till she saw the wise man driving past her house, and she stopped him in the road. "I'm glad you know all about my man over there, Hawkins." "Why, I don't know anything about him." "Oh, yes, you said he'd committed murder." "No, I said most likely; but I didn't want it repeated, for, of course, I don't know." "Yes, you bet! And there's a good many things you don't want repeated. You don't want it repeated that you put old Lewson's brats up to turning him out of the house." "Look here, madam, I didn't do anything of the sort. I simply said I didn't see how they could live with him; and I didn't, either." "Well, it's all right. The old man's got a better home than he ever had; and you needn't worry yourself about my man over yonder. He couldn't sell as much milk from five cows as you can do, and I don't believe you can keep it up unless we have rain pretty soon, but he knows how to attend to his own business, and that's somethin' you've never been able to learn." "Madam, if you'll step from in front of my horses I'll drive on." "Yes, and mighty glad of the opportunity. You stir trouble, and are the first one to hitch up and drive out of it. Now go on, and don't you let me hear of any more murder stories."