At six I stopped, amazed to find the plot of a story in my head. Heaven knows how it got there, but there it was, almost as full-statured as Minerva when she sprang from the head of Jove, though considerably less glacial. I even had the opening sentence all ready framed--to me always the most difficult point of story or essay, except the closing sentence. Nor did this tale appear to be one I had incubated in the past, and which now popped up above the "threshold" from my subconsciousness. It was a brand-new plot, a perfect stranger to me. The phenomenon interested me almost as much as the plot. The tale grew even clearer as I took my bath, and haunted me during supper, so that I was peremptory in my replies to poor Mrs. Pillig and refused to aid Peter that evening with his geography. "To-morrow," said I, vaguely, going into my study and locking the door. I worked all that evening, got up at midnight to forage for a glass of milk and a fresh supply of oil for my lamp, and returned to my desk to work till four, when the sun astonished me. The story was done! Instead of going to bed, I went down in the cool of the young morning, when only the birds were astir, and took my bath in Stella's pool. Then I went to the dew-drenched pea vines and began to pick peas. Here Mike found me, with nearly half a bushel gathered, when he appeared early to pick for market. "It's the early bird gets the peas," said I. "It is shurely," he laughed. "You might say you had a tiliphone call to get up--only these ain't tiliphones." "Mike!" I cried, "a pun before breakfast!" "Shure, I've had me breakfast," said he. Which reminded me that I hadn't. I went in the house to get it, reading over and correcting my manuscript as I ate. After breakfast I put on respectable clothes, tucked the manuscript in my pocket, and mounted the seat of my farm wagon, beside Mike. Behind us were almost two bushels of peas and several bunches of tall, juicy, red rhubarb stalks from the old hills we found on the place. Mike had greatly enriched the soil, and grown the plants in barrels. "Well, I'm a real farmer now," said I. "Ye are, shurely," Mike replied. "Them's good peas, if they was planted late." We drove past the golf links and the summer hotel, to the market, where I was already known, I found, and greeted by name as I entered. "I'll buy anything you'll sell me," said the proprietor, "and be glad to get it. Funny thing about this town, the way folks won't take the trouble to sell what they raise. Most of the big summer estates have their own gardens, of course, but there's nearly a hundred families that don't, and four boarding-houses, and the hotels. Why, the hotels send to New York for vegetables--if you can beat that! Guess all our farmers with any gumption have gone to the cities." "Well," said I, "I'm not in farming for my health, which has always been good. I've got more than a bushel of peas out there."