“How is Deacon Binks?” I asked presently.

“Soul buried in fat!  The sparkler on his bosom suggests a tombstone stickin’ out of a soiled snowbank.”

A little more talk and we were off to bed with our candles.

Next morning I went down into the main street of the village before leaving for home.  I wanted to see how it looked and, to be quite frank, I wanted some of the people of Canton to see how I looked, for my clothes were of the best cloth and cut in the latest fashion.  Many stopped me and shook my hand—­men and women who had never noticed me before, but there was a quality in their smiles that I didn’t quite enjoy.  I know now that they thought me a little too grand on the outside.  What a stern-souled lot those Yankees were!  “All ain’t gold that glitters.”  How often I had heard that version of the old motto!

“Why, you look like the Senator when he is just gittin’ home from the capital,” said Mr. Jenison.

They were not yet willing to take me at the par of my appearance.

I met Betsy Price—­one of my schoolmates—­on the street.  She was very cordial and told me that the Dunkelbergs had gone to Saratoga.

“I got a letter from Sally this morning,” Betsy went on.  “She said that young Mr. Latour was at the same hotel and that he and her father were good friends.”

I wonder if she really enjoyed sticking this thorn into my flesh—­a thorn which made it difficult for me to follow the advice of the schoolmaster and robbed me of the little peace I might have enjoyed.  My faith in Sally wavered up and down until it settled at its wonted level and reassured me.

It was a perfect summer morning and I enjoyed my walk over the familiar road and up into the hill country.  The birds seemed to sing a welcome to me.  Men and boys I had known waved their hats in the hay-fields and looked at me.  There are few pleasures in this world like that of a boy getting home after a long absence.  My heart beat fast when I saw the house and my uncle and Purvis coming in from the twenty-acre lot with a load of hay.  Aunt Deel stood on the front steps looking down the road.  Now and then her waving handkerchief went to her eyes.  Uncle Peabody came down the standard off his load and walked toward me.

“Say, stranger, have you seen anything of a feller by the name o’ Bart Baynes?” he demanded.

“Have you?” I asked.

“No, sir, I ain’t.  Gosh a’mighty!  Say! what have ye done with that boy of our’n?”

“What have you done to our house?” I asked again.

“Built on an addition.”

“That’s what I’ve done to your boy,” I answered.

“Thunder an’ lightnin’!  How you’ve raised the roof!” he exclaimed as he grabbed my satchel.  “Dressed like a statesman an’ bigger’n a bullmoose.  I can’t ’rastle with you no more.  But, say, I’ll run ye a race.  I can beat ye an’ carry the satchel, too.”

We ran pell-mell up the lane to the steps like a pair of children.