They were certainly good-hearted folk, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Pratt. He
put Peg and Bock away in the barn and gave them their supper, while
Mrs. Pratt took me up to her spare bedroom and brought me a jug of
hot water. Then they all trooped back into the dining-room and the
meal began again. I am a connoisseur of farm cooking, I guess, and
I've got to hand it to Beulah Pratt that she was an A-1 housewife.
Her hot biscuit was perfect; the coffee was real Mocha, simmered,
not boiled; the cold sausage and potato salad was as good as any
Andrew ever got. And she had a smoking-hot omelet sent in for me,
and opened a pot of her own strawberry preserve. The children (two
boys and a girl) sat open-mouthed, nudging one another, and Mr.
Pratt got out his pipe while I finished up on stewed pears and cream
and chocolate cake. It was a regular meal. I wondered what Andrew
was eating and whether he had found the nest behind the wood pile
where the red hen always drops her eggs.

"Well, well," said Mr. Pratt, "tell us about the Perfessor. We was
expectin' him here some time this fall. He generally gets here
around cider time."

"I guess there isn't so much to tell," I said. "He stopped up at our
place the other day, and said he wanted to sell his outfit. So I
bought him out. He was pining to get back to Brooklyn and write a
book."

"That book o' his!" said Mrs. Pratt. "He was always talkin' on it,
but I don't believe he ever started it yet."

"Whereabout do you come from, Miss McGill?" said Pratt. I could see