So Robinson had spring fever, too! How it makes us turn back home! I made some flattering comment or other on the paper (especially, I recall, starring the verb _coot_ as good hen lore), and put it with the rest. Then I fell to dreaming. Home! I, John Upton, academic bachelor, had no home, no parents, no kith nor kin. I had my study lined with books, my little monastic bedroom behind it, my college position, and a shabby remnant of my old ambitions. The soft "coot, coot" of a hen picking up grain on the old barn floor! I closed my eyes in delicious memory--memory of my grandfather's farm down in Essex County. The sweet call of the village church bell came back to me, the drone of the preacher, the smell of lilacs outside, the stamp of an impatient horse in the horse sheds where liniment for man and beast was advertised on tin posters! "Why don't I go back to it, and give up this grind?" I thought. Then, being an English instructor, I added learnedly, "and be a disciple of Rousseau!" It was a warm April night, and I was foolish with spring fever. I began to play with the idea. I got up and opened my tin box, to investigate the visible paper tokens of my little fortune. There was, in all, about $30,000, the result of my legacy from my parents and my slender savings from my slender salary, for I had never had any extravagances except books and golf balls. I had heard of farms being bought for $1,500. That would still leave me more than $1,200 a year. Perhaps, with the freedom from this college grind, I could write some of those masterpieces at last--even a best seller! I grew as rosy with hope as an undergraduate. I looked at myself in the glass--not yet bald, face smooth, rather academic, shoulders good, thanks to daily rowing. Hands hard, too! I sought for a copy of the _Transcript_, and ran over the real estate ads. Here was a gentleman's estate, with two butler's pantries and a concrete garage--_that_ would hardly do! No, I should have to consult somebody. Besides $1,200 a year would hardly be enough to run even a $1,500 farm on, not for a year or two, because I should have to hire help. I must find something practical to do to support myself. What? What _could_ I do, except put sarcastic comments on the daily themes of helpless undergraduates? I went to bed with a very poor opinion of English instructors.