"Oh, well, you can describe me to him!" cried Mr. Hamlin, laughing (for he knew how cut up we should feel if he told us who he really was). "And if he cannot make me out, you may tell him that it was an old fellow he once knew, named Hamlin. Good-by." And he drove away. The name signified little to us at the time. "Well, whoever he is, he's an old brick!" said Halse, as the gray horse and buggy passed between the high gate-posts, at the foot of the lane. "I think he is just splendid!" exclaimed Kate, enthusiastically. "And he has such a great, kind heart!" said Theodora. When Gramp and Gram came home, we were not slow in telling them that a most remarkable elderly man, named Hamlin, had called to see them, and stopped to lunch with us. "Hamlin, Hamlin," repeated the Old Squire, absently. "What sort of looking man?" Theodora and Ellen described him, with much zest. "Why, Joseph, it must have been Hannibal!" cried Gram. "So it was!" exclaimed Gramp. "Too bad we were not at home!" "What! Not Hannibal Hamlin that was Vice-President of the United States!" Addison almost shouted. "Yes, Vice-President Hamlin," said the Old Squire. And about that time, it would have required nothing much heavier than a turkey's feather to bowl us all over. Addison looked at "Doad" and she looked at Ellen and me. Halse whistled. "Why, what did you say, or do, that makes you look so queer!" cried Gram, with uneasiness. "I hope you behaved well to him. Did anything happen?" "Oh, no, nothing much," said Ellen, laughing nervously. "Only he got the 'Jonah' pie and--and--we've had the Vice-President of the United States under the table to put our feet on!" Gram turned very red and was much disturbed. She wanted to have a letter written that night, and try to apologize for us. But the Old Squire only laughed. "I have known Mr. Hamlin ever since he was a boy," said he. "He enjoyed that pie as well as any of them; no apology is needed." CHAPTER XXIII THE THRASHERS COME Truth to say, farm work is never done, particularly on a New England farm where a little of everything has to be undertaken and all kinds of crops are raised, and where sheep, cattle, calves, colts, horses and poultry have to be tended and provided with winter food, indoors. A thrifty farmer has always a score of small jobs awaiting his hands. There were now brakes to cut and dry for "bedding" at the barn, bushes and briars to clear up along the fences and walls, and stone-heaps to draw off, preparatory to "breaking up" several acres more of greensward. The Old Squire's custom was to break up three or four acres, every August, so that the turf would rot during the autumn. Potatoes were then usually planted on it the ensuing spring, to be followed the next year by corn and the next by wheat, or some other grain, when it was again seeded down in grass.