I proceeded to act at once on Seth’s idea. I remembered having seen, back on the road, a little place which at the time I had thought looked like the home of some foreign-born pioneer. It bore all the earmarks; it was an unkempt but busy looking place. There were evidences of many children and a consequent clutter of tin cans, broken bottles and old shoes, but I saw no farming tools and broken down wagons in the yard. These things were all under cover in the shed. I noticed too that the yard was full of chickens and that every square foot of land around the house was being tilled. When I knocked at the door a woman appeared with a child in her arms and with half a dozen more clinging to her skirts. She was a red-cheeked, black-eyed woman, as plump and happy looking as you would ask to see. Somehow I felt instantly at home here. I surprised her by asking in Italian where her man was, and she answered that he was out back of the barn and bade one of the boys to run and fetch him for the signor. I said no, that I would go and find him myself. She protested that the signor would get wet and that he had better come in and wait. I felt half ashamed that she should class me with that sort of coddled signor and hurried off to find Tony. I found him in an old hat and gray sweater, up to his knees in the black soil. He was a swarthy, well-muscled chap, with a face tanned to the color of sole leather. He looked like a villain of melodrama, but as I approached he smiled a greeting which revealed teeth as naturally white as a hound’s. A couple of mongrel pups were nosing at his heels and ran at me ferociously, but stopped half way and wagged their tails. With an oath in Italian he ordered them back and belly to the ground they obeyed him. I introduced myself and he recognized my name at once for the fame of Carleton’s gang had by now spread far. “I have two cousins working for you,” he said in a manner that made me feel it a compliment. He told me their names and I remembered them well. They were good workmen. “I’ve bought a house near you,” I said. “I need a man or two to help me. Do you want a job?” “Ah, signor,” he replied with a shake of his head in apology, “if I did not have so much to do here.” He waved his hand over the scant two acres of land back of him as though it were a principality. “This is all yours?” I asked. “Yes,” he answered proudly. “This--the house--everything.” “You are doing well then.” “Well enough,” he answered with a shrug of his shoulders and a smile. “Then I can’t hire you?” “It would be impossible, signor,” he answered, as though some apology were due me. “The planting is not yet done. And--by the good Christ--there are a thousand things to do on an estate.” It was good to hear the way he pronounced that word estate. There was enough dignity in it to make it seem in sober earnest like an estate. “Do you know of anyone I can get?” I asked. “There is Signor Chase,” he began.