"I met County Clerk Jim Lacey's wife--her that used to be Melissa Trumbull, you know. It was the first I knew of it. I took dinner with 'em; she wouldn't allow anything else. They've been married seven years and they've got a mighty nice little family: three children. Jim's a good fellow." Jason said nothing for a few moments. Then he assented deliberately: "Yes, Jim's a good fellow. I've met him often. I didn't know whether he was married or not, though. What was it you said about them young pear trees? I may take a dozen or two of 'em." In the middle of the forenoon a few days later, while Jason was looking over the sheep barns and giving directions to the men at work there, a sudden fancy came upon him. He went to the house, asked for a hammer and withdrew the nails from the front door. Then he opened all the parlor windows and let in the sunlight. "It'll be healthier," he explained to the astonished and delighted housekeeper. "Keep them open as much as you want to now, in pleasant weather, and let the children in, too, if they like it. It'll brighten things up." At a table in one of the fine restaurants in the big city sat, recently, at dinner a man and woman, he a man of the world, she charming as women so often are. They were delighted with the wonderful mutton they had just eaten and were talking of it. "It's a mutton only kings would be allowed to eat, if these were ancient times," the man asserted laughingly. "It's delicate as strawberries, though that isn't a good comparison. It may have come direct from the Goodell fields." "Who is Goodell?" queried the lady. "Goodell, my dear madam, is a public benefactor. He is one of the wisest raisers of Southdown sheep the country knows. He's a splendid old fellow, too. I've visited his farm and met him. He's awfully fond of children." CHAPTER XVII THE ENCHANTED COW For some reason, not altogether clear, there was no comment for a time after the Farmer had finished his account of the affair of Jason and the girl and the Southdown sheep. Perhaps it was because of the grotesqueness of the idea that a man working so faithfully for and so dreaming of his love--a practical man--could have left absolute possession of her to the unreal, while making his hobby at hand the real. The silence was broken by the Young Lady: "That is very strange life history, it seems to me. How could any man, a real man, forget the girl he cared for in such a way? It seems all wicked and unnatural." "But, my dear young lady," explained the Professor, banteringly ponderous, "he did not forget her. In fact, from the account he appears to have been a most devoted lover. What he forgot was time. Besides," he continued, "taking the broader point of view, how much better it is for all of us that, in one region at least, we have better mutton than that Jason should have raised a family!" "Bother the mutton!" was the indignant and somewhat irreverent answer, and then the Colonel intervened: