"Next morning after breakfast--and it _was_ a breakfast--I strolled out to the barn and, the carriage-shed door being open, I pulled the old buggy out--'peared like it was the very same one, and I was a-dustin' the cushions and fussin' around when the old man came up. "'What you doin' with that buggy?' he asks. "'I jest thought I'd ride over and see Nance McRae,' I says, just as I did eleven years before. "'I reckon you better think again,' he says, and rolls the buggy back into the shed, just the way he did before. 'If you want to see Nance McRae you can walk,' he says, and I could see he meant it. "'All right,' I says, and out I stepped without so much as saying good-by, intendin' to go for good this time. "I went across the road to Martin's and got a chance to 'phone into Jackson, and in about twenty minutes I was whirlin' over the road in a red-cushioned automobile that ran smooth as oil, and inside of half an hour I was rollin' through McRae's gate. "Now, up to this time, I hadn't any notion of a program as to Nancy; I was all took up with gettin' ahead of dad. But when I found myself in front of old McRae, more down at the heel and raggeder in the seat than ever, I was a whole lot set back. What was I to say to him and to her? I didn't know. He was gappin' at me with the eyes of an owl, and so I opened up. "'I see you have no lightnin'-rods?' I says. 'In this day and age of the world you can't afford to go without lightnin'-rods.' "He wa'n't no fool, if he did wear rats in his hair, and he says: "'I thought you was a cream-separator man. Are lightnin'-rods comin' into style again?' "'My kind is,' I says. "'Well, the trade must be lookin' up,' he says, walkin' round and round my machine and eyin' it. 'I'm thinkin' of havin' one of them wagons for haulin' milk to town. Won't you light out?' "'Don't care if I do,' I says, and out I rolled, feelin' a little shaky. "I was mighty anxious to see Nance by this time, but felt shy of askin' about her. "'What _is_ the latest kink in rods?' asked the old cuss. "'These kind I sell,' I says, 'are the kind that catch and store the electricity in a tank down cellar. Durin' a thunder-storm you can save up enough to rock the baby and run the churn for a week or two.' "'I want 'o know,' he says. 'Well, we 'ain't got a baby and no churn--but mebbe it would run a cream-separator?' "'Sure it would.' "All the time we was a-joshin' this way he was a-studyin' me--and finally he said: "'You can't fool me, Ed. How are ye?' "And we shook hands. I always liked the old cuss. He was a great reader--always talkin' about Napoleon--he'd been a great man if he'd ever got off the farm and into something that required just his kind o' brain-work. "'Come in,' he says. 'Nance will want to see you.' "The minute he said that I had a queer feelin' at the pit o' my stummick--I did, sure thing. 'It's a little early for a call,' I says, 'and I ain't in Sunday clothes.'