"I don't believe I care to try it. I'm a born rube, I guess; I like it out here. And I'm going to stick until I make good or bust." Charles had cranked his machine and jumped in. "Look here, Fred," he said, raising his voice above the noise of the engine, "when I can do anything for you, I want you to call on me. And if you need money at any time, I want you to come to me or go to Uncle Will. In fact, he's a little sore because you don't drop in on him oftener. So long!" The machine went skimming down the road, and when it reached the pike and Charles picked up his friends, Fred watched its slow ascent of Listening Hill, and waited for it to disappear beyond the crest. CHAPTER IX ON AN ORCHARD SLOPE Fred moved off across the fields in quest of Perry. Charles never left him wholly happy. His long absence from home had in a way lessened his reliance on family ties, and an interview with his brother deepened the sense of his own dullness. He wondered whether it were not proof of his general worthlessness that he was so quickly adjusting himself to the conditions of rural life; and yet from such reflections his spirit quickly rebounded. In the very soil itself, he felt a kinship, born of a hidden, elusive, cramped vein of poetic feeling that lay deep in his nature. All life, he vaguely realized, is of a piece: man and the earth to which he is born respond to the same laws. He contemplated the wheatfield, tilled partly by his own hands, with a stirring of the heart that was new to his experience. He was wedded to this land; his hope was bound up in it; and he meant to serve it well. He sprang over the fence into a woods pasture on Amzi Montgomery's farm and strode on. He picked up a walnut and carried it in his hand, sniffing the pungent odor of the rind. It was as warm as spring, and the dead leaves, crisp and crackling under his tread, seemed an anomaly. The wood behind him, he crossed a pasture toward the barn and hesitated, seeing that Perry was entertaining visitors. He had fallen into the habit of dropping in at the Perrys' on Sunday afternoons and he was expected to-day, so he kept on. As he reached the barn lot, he identified Amzi Montgomery and Phyllis Kirkwood, to whom Perry was apparently dilating on the good points of a Jersey calf that was eyeing the visitors wonderingly. "Don't be afraid, Holton; my lecture is just over. You've heard it before and I'm not going to repeat it," Perry called to him. "How do you do, Mr. Holton," said Phil. He pulled off his hat and walked up to shake hands with her. "I didn't expect to find you here. I usually come over Sunday afternoons." "Does that mean you wouldn't have come if you'd known we were here!" laughed Phil. "Oh, Uncle Amy, this is Mr. Fred Holton. He's your next-door neighbor."