All this reveals a trait in him which lay deeper than child's-play--a susceptibility to suggestion. Even while he amused himself as a child with the shams and superstitions about nature, these lived on in his mind as part of its furnishings. Alas, that this should be true for all of us--that we cannot forget the things we do not believe in. To the end of our lives our thoughts have to move amid the obstructions and rubbish of the useless and the laughable. The salon of our inner dwelling is largely filled with old furniture which we decline to sit in, but are obliged to look at, and are powerless to remove; and which fills the favorite recesses where we should like to arrange the new. There they were, then, that Saturday afternoon: the uncle with his newspaper and the nephew at that moment with his group of evil birds. There was an interruption. Around the yard with its velvet turf and blooming shrubs and vines and flowers, that filled the air with fragrance, was a plank fence newly whitewashed. All the fences of the farm had been newly whitewashed; and they ran hither and thither across the emerald of the landscape like structures of white marble. Through the gate of the yard fence which was heard to shut behind him there now advanced toward uncle and nephew a neighbor of theirs, the minister of the country church, himself a bluegrass farmer. He was one of the many who liked to seek the company of the untroubled turfman. The two were good neighbors and great friends. The minister came oftenest for a visit on Saturday afternoons, as if he wished to touch at this harbor of a quiet life while passing from the earthly fields of the week to the Sabbath's holy land. At the sound of the latch the uncle lifted his eyes from his newspaper. "Bring a chair, Downs, will you?" he said in a cordial undertone; and soon there was a fine group of rural humanity under the blossoming locusts: the two men talking, and the boy, now that his turn had come at last, lying on the grass absorbed in the newspaper. The men were characters of broad plain speech, much like English squires of two centuries earlier: not ladylike men: Chaucer might have been pleased to make one of their group and listen, and turn them afterwards into fine old English tales; Hogarth might have craved the privilege to sit near and observe and paint; and a certain Sir John Falstaff might have been at home with them--in the absence of the "Merry Wives." There was another interruption. Around the corner of the manor house a young servant advanced, bearing a waiter with two deep glasses well filled: at the bottom the drink was golden; it was green and snow-white at the top: a little view of icebergs with pine trees growing on them. The servant smiled and approached with embarrassment, having discovered a guest; and in a lowered tone she offered to the master of the house apologies for not bringing three.