"You see, that's what comes o' lettin' young ones go to school. Since Edie got her education she thinks she knows more than the rest of us. My boy, young Bob--but we call him Bud--he's been to school a good deal; but he and Steadman's boy had a row, and I guess Bud was put out--I don't know. I was glad enough to get him home to draw poles from the big bush. Old George Steadman is a sly old rooster, and the other day he comes up to me in Millford, snuffin like a settin' goose, and I saw there was something on his mind. 'What's wrong, George?' I said. 'It's about them oats you promised me for seed,' he said. I had promised him some of my White Banner oats this spring. 'Ye'll let me have them, will ye?' says he. 'I was wonderin' if it made any difference about the boys quarrelin',' says he. I says: 'No, George, it don't make no difference; if you have the money you can have the oats, but don't expect me to take no security on mortgaged property,' says I." Mr. Perkins slapped his patient listener on the back and laughed uproariously. "You see, that was the worst thing I could say to him, for he's so eternally proud of his land. He has nineteen hundred acres all paid for, and him and the missus is always talkin' about it." "Did he have much when he started?" John Watson asked. "Well, I should say not. His wife had some money; but, you bet, she has it yet. She was a Hunter; they're as tight as the bark to the tree, every one of them--they'd skin a flea for the hide and tallow. Well, I'll just tell you, she lent him forty dollars to buy a cow with the first year they were in this country, with the understandin' he'd pay her back in the fall. Well, the crop didn't turn out well and he couldn't pay her, so she sold the cow, and the kids had to do without milk. Well, I must be goin' now to see how things are goin'. I don't work much--I just kinda loaf around and take care of the stock. How would you like a yoke of oxen to plough with? I got two big husky brutes out there in the pasture that know how to plow--I got them on a horse deal--and they've never done a stroke of work for me. Come on over with me and I'll fix you up with harness and all. I got the whole thing." John Watson looked at him in grateful surprise and thanked him for such welcome help. "Oh, don't say a word about it, John," Mr. Perkins said genially, "I'll be glad to see the beggars having to work. Look out for the black one--he's a sly old dog, and looks to me like an ox that would keep friends with a man for ten years to get a good chance to land a kick on him at last." When John Watson went over for the oxen, Mrs. Perkins came out bareheaded to make kind inquiries for his wife and family. From within came the mellow hum of the cream-separator, as Martha, the steady member of the family, played a profitable tune thereon.