“Yes,” I answered as I settled back in the little chair and took one passionately delighted look around the old room, which I was seeing in the broad light of day for the first time.  I am glad that the old home which had been the stronghold of my foremothers and fathers was thus revealed to me in half lights and a little at a time; I couldn’t have stood the ecstasy of it all at once.  The room was the low-beamed old wonder that I had felt it to be in the candle-light the night before, only now the soft richness of the paneling, which held back into the gloom the faded colors of the books that lined the walls, the mellowed glow of the rough stone of the chimney, and the faded hand-woven rugs on the floor made it all look like one of Rembrandt’s or Franz Hals’ canvases.  But in a few seconds I came back from the joy of it to a consciousness of what Matthew Berry was saying.

“You see,” he was explaining with enthusiasm, “that this new form of office for the state commissioner of agriculture is really a part of the great program of preparedness that has been evolving here in America since the Great War began, and nobody knows just what to expect of it as yet.  The request from the President for the appointment of Evan Baldwin to take the portfolio in the State of Harpeth has made everybody see that the President means business with the States, and that America is to be made to produce her own food and the food of the rest of the world that needs it.  When a scientist like Baldwin, worth millions and with experiment stations of hundreds of acres in most states in the Union, which are coining more millions with their propagation output, steps out and stands shoulder to shoulder with Edison in working to get the United States prepared to feed the world as well as to fend off any of that world that menaces it, the rest of us have got to get up and hustle, some with a musket and some with a plow.”

“And some with an egg-basket,” I added, as my cheeks began to glow with something I hadn’t ever felt before, but which I classified as patriotism.

“My country has only to call us and we’ll answer to the whole of our kingdom, William and I. We were lads too young to carry muskets against her in the Civil war, but we, with Rufus, plowed these acres with children’s strength, and the larger portion of our products went to feed hungry soldiers both blue and gray.  I say, just let my country call William and me!” As Uncle Cradd spoke, his back straightened, and I saw that he must have been every inch of six feet three in his youth.  “William?”

“With you, Cradd,” answered father quietly, and I felt that that formula was the one by which they had lived their joint youth.