I love to think of Nort, coming down our street for the first time--the green common with its wonderful tall elms on one side and the row of neat stores and offices on the other. It must be a real adventure to see Hempfield on a sunny morning with a new eye, to pass Henderson's drygoods store and catch the ginghamy whiff from the open doorway, or go by Mr. Tole's drug store and breathe in the aromatic odour of strange things that should be stoppered in glass bottles and aren't. And then the cool smell of newly watered sidewalks, and the good look of the tomatoes in their baskets, and the moist onions, and spinach, and radishes, and rhubarb in front of the shady market, and the sparrows fighting in the street--and everything quiet, and still, and home-like! [Illustration: _John Bass's blacksmith shop_] And think of coming unexpectedly (how I wish I could do it myself some day and wake up afterward to enjoy it) upon the wide doorway of John Bass's blacksmith shop, and see John himself standing there at his anvil with a hot horseshoe in his tongs. John never sings when his iron is in the fire, but the moment he gets his hand on his hammer and the iron on the horn of the anvil, then all the Baptist in him seems suddenly to effervesce, and he lifts his high and squeaky voice: "Jeru (whack) salem (whack) the gold (whack) en (whack, whack), "With milk (whack) and hon (whack) ey blest (whack, whack, whack)." And what wouldn't I give to clap my eyes newly on old Mr. Kenton, standing there in front of his office, his florid face shaded by the porch roof, but the rotundity of his white waistcoat gleaming in the sunshine, his cane hooked over his arm, and himself looking benignly out upon the world of Hempfield as it flows by, ready to discuss with any one either the origin or the destiny of his neighbours. At the corner above the post office Nort stopped and leaned against the fence, and looked up the street and down the street. His spirits were extremely low. He felt wholly miserable. He had not a notion in the world what he was going to do, did not at that time even know the name of the town he was in. It was indeed pure chance that had led him to Hempfield. If he had had a few cents more in his pocket it might have been Acton, or if a few cents less it might have been Roseburg. His only instinct, blurred at the moment, I am sorry to say, had been to get as far away from New York as possible--and Hempfield happened to be just about the limit of his means. [Illustration: _He pictured himself sitting in the quiet study of the minister, looking sad, sad_]