Summer indeed is for activity, winter for reflection.  But when winter really came every day discovered some new work to do or some new adventure to enjoy.  It is surprising how many things happen on a small farm.  Examining the book which accounts for that winter, I find the history of part of a forenoon, which will illustrate one of the curious adventures of a farmer’s life.  It is dated January 5.

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I went out this morning with my axe and hammer to mend the fence along the public road.  A heavy frost fell last night and the brown grass and the dry ruts of the roads were powdered white.  Even the air, which was perfectly still, seemed full of frost crystals, so that when the sun came up one seemed to walk in a magic world.  I drew in a long breath and looked out across the wonderful shining country and I said to myself: 

“Surely, there is nowhere I would rather be than here.”  For I could have travelled nowhere to find greater beauty or a better enjoyment of it than I had here at home.

As I worked with my axe and hammer, I heard a light wagon come rattling up the road.  Across the valley a man had begun to chop a tree.  I could see the axe steel flash brilliantly in the sunshine before I heard the sound of the blow.

The man in the wagon had a round face and a sharp blue eye.  I thought he seemed a businesslike young man.

“Say, there,” he shouted, drawing up at my gate, “would you mind holding my horse a minute?  It’s a cold morning and he’s restless.”

“Certainly not,” I said, and I put down my tools and held his horse.

He walked up to my door with a brisk step and a certain jaunty poise of the head.

“He is well contented with himself,” I said.  “It is a great blessing for any man to be satisfied with what he has got.”

I heard Harriet open the door—­how every sound rang through the still morning air!

The young man asked some question and I distinctly heard Harriet’s answer: 

“He’s down there.”

The young man came back:  his hat was tipped up, his quick eye darted over my grounds as though in a single instant he had appraised everything and passed judgment upon the cash value of the inhabitants.  He whistled a lively little tune.

“Say,” he said, when he reached the gate, not at all disconcerted, “I thought you was the hired man.  Your name’s Grayson, ain’t it?  Well, I want to talk with you.”

After tying and blanketing his horse and taking a black satchel from his buggy he led me up to my house.  I had a pleasurable sense of excitement and adventure.  Here was a new character come to my farm.  Who knows, I thought, what he may bring with him:  who knows what I may send away by him?  Here in the country we must set our little ships afloat on small streams, hoping that somehow, some day, they will reach the sea.

It was interesting to see the busy young man sit down so confidently in our best chair.  He said his name was Dixon, and he took out from his satchel a book with a fine showy cover.  He said it was called “Living Selections from Poet, Sage and Humourist.”