Eli had not been to Roswarva since the days of its previous owners, a beach-combing, shiftless crew, and he barely recognized the place. The kitchen was creamy with whitewash; the cupboards freshly painted; the table scrubbed spotless; the ranked pans gleamed like copper moons; all along the mantelshelf were china dogs with gilt collars and ladies and gentlemen on prancing horses, hawks perched a-wrist. In the corner was an oak grandfather clock with a bright brass face engraved with the signs of the zodiac and the cautionary words: “I mark ye Hours but cannot stay their Race; Nor Priest nor King may buy a moment’s Grace; Prepare to meet thy Maker face to face.” Sunlight poured into the white kitchen through the south window, setting everything a-shine and a-twinkle—a contrast to unkempt Bosula, redolent of cooking and stale food, buzzing with flies, incessantly invaded by pigs and poultry. Outside Roswarva all was in the same good shape; the erst-littered yard cleared up, the tumbledown sheds rebuilt and thatched. Eli limped home over trim hedges, fields cultivated up to the last inch and plentifully manured and came upon his own land—crumbling banks broken down by cattle and grown to three times their proper breadth with thorn and brambles; fields thick with weeds; windfalls lying where they had dropped; bracken encroaching from every point. He had never before remarked anything amiss with Bosula, but, coming straight from Roswarva, the contrast struck him in the face. He thought about it for two days, and then marched over to Roswarva. He found Simeon Penaluna on the cliff-side rooting out slabs of granite with a crowbar and piling them into a wall. A vain pursuit, Eli thought, clearing a cliff only fit for donkeys and goats. “What are you doing that for?” he asked. “Potatoes,” said Simeon. “Why here, when you got proper fields?” “Open to sun all day, and sea’ll keep ’em warm at night. No frost. I’ll get taties here two weeks earlier than up-along.” “How do you know?” “Read it. Growers in Jersey has been doin’ it these years.” Eli digested this information and leaned against the wall, watching Penaluna at work. Eli liked the man’s air of patient power, also his economy of speech. He decided he was to be trusted. “You’re a good farmer, aren’t you?” “Yes,” said Penaluna truthfully. “What’s wrong with our place, Bosula?” Eli inquired. “Under-manned,” said Penaluna. “Your father had two men besides himself and he worked like a bullock and was clever, I’ve heard tell. Now you’ve got but two, and not a head between ’em. Place is going back. Come three years the trash’ll strangle ’e in your beds.” Eli took the warning calmly. “We’ll stop that,” he announced. Penaluna subjected him to a hard scrutiny, spat on his palms, worked the crow-bar into a crevice and tried his weight on it. “Hum! Maybe—but you’d best start soon.” Eli nodded and considered again. “Are you clever?”