Like many other farms in this section of Western Pennsylvania, the buildings were set so that the barn stood between the house and the main road, making the approach to the house past the barn and through the barnyard. For the first time, this awkward arrangement was apparent to him; he wondered why the buildings had been thus located, and facing northwest. He replaced his cap, swung his suitcase over the fence, jumped down to the frozen ground and set off down the hill. As he trudged along, picking his way over the rough ground, the parting words of his father came to him: "Make yourself useful, Bob, and your Uncle Joe, I'm sure, will pay you all you're worth, and while I'd rather have you become a merchant, still if you find you like the farm, you may stay with your Uncle Joe." It was not so much the prospect of making money as the chance of being in the open air among the things that he loved that caused him to whistle a lively tune as he crossed the fields toward the house. The one over which he was now passing, he observed, had been planted in winter wheat, and that just beyond, at the edge of the meadow, was the young orchard well grown and badly in need of pruning. The route he had taken soon brought him out into the lane at the foot of the hill, near the cider mill, where he stopped to drink of the cool sap that flowed into a large tin pail, from one of the sugar-maple trees under whose branches the mill stood. How good it tasted to the thirsty boy, as he drank slowly from a long-handled dipper that someone had conveniently left hanging on the tree. When he had quenched his thirst, he picked up his suitcase again, resting it on one shoulder, and continued up the lane to the house. "Hello, grandma!" he shouted, as he dropped his luggage on the porch and hurried forward to meet her as she emerged from the kitchen door, a steaming kettle of vegetables in her hand. "Why, Bob, where'd you come from?" she exclaimed, setting the kettle down and kissing him. "I looked for grandfather and Uncle Joe when I got off the bus in town, but I couldn't see them anywhere, so I walked out," he replied. "Why, I'm sure they expected to meet you, Bob," she replied, "but the roads are so rough, I suppose they were late. They took some grain to the mill and would have to wait for it to be ground, and they may have been delayed there--but you haven't told me yet how all the folks are." "Oh, they're all pretty well," he replied; "but tell me, when is Uncle Joe to be married?" "Some time in April, I believe," she replied. "Do you know you're to be his chore boy this summer?" "Yes, father told me--it will be lots of fun. Just think--no more working all cooped up in a store like the last two summers," he replied enthusiastically. "But it won't be all fun, you know, Bob. Your Uncle Joe has bought the farm, although it's not all paid for yet, and I imagine he'll keep you pretty busy--if I know Joe," she added.