me that flowers and such things feed mind and heart. So if one HAS mind and
heart, flowers become one of the most useful crops. Isn't that practical
common sense?"

"Not very common in Oakville. I'm glad you think I'm in a hopeful frame of
mind, as they used to say down at the meeting house. Anyhow, since you wish
it, we will have a flower crop as well as a potato crop."

Thus they continued chatting while Alida cleared up the table, and Holcroft,
having lighted his pipe, busied himself with peeling a long, slim hickory
sapling intended for a whipstock.

Having finished her tasks, Alida was finally drying her hands on a towel that
hung near a window. Suddenly, she caught sight of a dark face peering in.
Her startled cry brought Holcroft hastily to his feet. "What's the matter?" he
asked.

"I saw--" Then she hesitated from a fear that he would rush into some unknown
danger.

The rough crew without perceived that their presence was known, and Tim Weeks
cried, "Now, all together!"

A frightful overture began at once, the hooting and yelling almost drowning
the instrumental part and sending to Alida's heart that awful chill of fear
produced by human voices in any mob-like assemblage. Holcroft understood the
affair at once, for he was familiar with the custom, but she did not. He
threw open the door with the purpose of sternly expostulating with the
disturbers of the peace and of threatening them with the law unless they
retired. With an instinct to share his danger she stepped to his side, and