“Quite safe, Nelton,” said Leighton.  “Why?”

Nelton mutely held out Lew’s hat and jerked his head back at the wrecked canopy.

“Oh, yes,” said Leighton, nodding; “we dropped those.  Thank you for picking them up.  Take the bags up-stairs.”

“Lew,” said Leighton, as they were washing, “did you use to have dinner at night at Nadir or supper?”

“Supper,” said Lewis.

“Well,” said Leighton, “that’s what you’ll get today—­at six o’clock, and don’t you be frightened when you see it.  It has been said of the Scotch that the most wonderful thing about them is that they can live on oats.  The mystery of the brawn and muscle of New England is no less wrapped up in pies.  But don’t hesitate.  Pitch in.  There’s something about this air that turns a nightly mixture of mince-pies, pumpkin-pies, custard-pies, lemon-pies, and apple-pies, with cheese, into a substance as heavenly light as fresh-fallen manna.  It is a tradition, wisely fostered by the farmers, that the only thing that can bring nightmare and the colic to a stomach in New England are green apples and stolen melons.”

Lewis was in good appetite, as was Leighton.  They ate heartily of many things besides pies, went to bed at nine, and would have slept the round of the clock had not a great gong—­a bit of steel rail hung on a wire—­and all the multitudinous noises of farm headquarters broken out in one simultaneous chorus at half-past five in a glorious morning.

Noisy geese and noisier cocks, whinnying horses and lowing cattle, the rattle of milk-tins, the squeak of the well-boom, the clank of mowing-machines, the swish of a passing brush-harrow, and, finally, the clamoring gong, were too much for Nelton.  Lewis, on his way to look for a bath, caught him stuffing what he called “cotton an’ wool” into his ears.

“Tork about the streets of Lunnon, Master Lewis,” he said.  “I calls this country life deafenin’.”

Lewis had wanted to telegraph to Natalie, but Leighton had stopped him.

“You’ve waited too long for that,” he had said.  “You have apparently neglected Natalie and Mrs. Leighton.  When people think they’ve been neglected, never give them a chance to think up what they’re going to say to you.  Just fall on them.”

As soon as they had breakfasted, Leighton took Lewis to the top of the hill at the back of the homestead.  It was a high hill.  It commanded a long stretch of the Housatonic Valley to the east, and toward the west and north it overlooked two ridges, with the dips between, before the eye came up against the barrier of the Berkshire range.

Lewis drew a long breath of the cold, morning air.

“It’s beautiful, Dad,” he said.

“Beautiful!” repeated Leighton, his eyes sweeping slowly and wistfully across the scene.  “Boy, God has made no lovelier land.”

Then he turned to the west and pointed across to the second ridge.  “Do you see that gleam of white that stands quite alone?”