“If the poor people in the city knew they could get them for nothing they would all come to the country. An’, Mis. Vernon,” said she, with a characteristic chuckle, “If the farmers knew they sold for five cents in the city they’d take ’em down theirselves and sell ’em.” Even Minerva felt that the middle man was an excrescence. They were still hunting for the queen’s lace when I returned with what was for me a fine string of trout. James had taken his string home. “Oh, what beauties. Did James catch them for you?” said Ethel. “We’ll have them for lunch.” Minerva took the forked stick that held the half dozen, not one less than eight inches in length, and as soon as she had left, Ethel told me of her thoughtful conversation. She also told me that she despaired of getting any queen’s lace. “I must send to the seedsman for some seeds and sprinkle it in the grass so that we may have some next year.” “Do so,” said I with the tone that fits superior knowledge. “Do so, and help fill the cell of a model Massachusetts prison. Don’t you know that that’s wild carrot and it’s counted as big a nuisance as the Canada thistle. Don’t you know we’d be fined?” “Well, certainly farmers don’t know a beautiful thing when they see it,” said Ethel jumping to an illogical conclusion. “Are you sure that it is a nuisance? It grew all over the grass in Barnham.” “Yes, and they were shiftless people in that place. Here, give me your nature book.” I took it and soon found the page. “Here it is: ‘This is, perhaps, the “peskiest” of all the weeds with which he has to contend.’ The farmer may think it’s beautiful, but it isn’t beauty so much as a living that he is after. We have to obey the laws in a civilized state like Massachusetts. It’s a punishable offence to let it grow.” “Well, I don’t see how it could harm just on this place. Nobody farms it very near us.” “No, but the wind has a way of carrying seeds, Ethel,” said I, sarcastically. “It was the way of the wind with a seed that first suggested rural delivery, I have no doubt. Who is that talking to Minerva?” It was a man who, driving by, had stopped and hailed her, and had now left his horse in the middle of the road and had gone over to her. We could not hear what he said, but we saw her suddenly put her two hands behind her back as if to conceal her string of fish. I hurried over to the man, followed by Ethel. “Are those trout,” said the man, carelessly. “No, they’re fishes,” said Minerva, in a tone of contempt for his ignorance. “Yes, they’re trout?” said I. “Why do you want to know?”