It was seven-thirty and fast growing dark when Joe Welling came along the station platform toward the New Willard House.  In his arms he held a bundle of weeds and grasses.  In spite of the terror that made his body shake, George Willard was amused at the sight of the small spry figure holding the grasses and half running along the platform.

Shaking with fright and anxiety, the young reporter lurked in the hallway outside the door of the room in which Joe Welling talked to the two Kings.  There had been an oath, the nervous giggle of old Edward King, and then silence.  Now the voice of Joe Welling, sharp and clear, broke forth.  George Willard began to laugh.  He understood.  As he had swept all men before him, so now Joe Welling was carrying the two men in the room off their feet with a tidal wave of words.  The listener in the hall walked up and down, lost in amazement.

Inside the room Joe Welling had paid no attention to the grumbled threat of Tom King.  Absorbed in an idea he closed the door and, lighting a lamp, spread the handful of weeds and grasses upon the floor.  “I’ve got something here,” he announced solemnly.  “I was going to tell George Willard about it, let him make a piece out of it for the paper.  I’m glad you’re here.  I wish Sarah were here also.  I’ve been going to come to your house and tell you of some of my ideas.  They’re interesting.  Sarah wouldn’t let me.  She said we’d quarrel.  That’s foolish.”

Running up and down before the two perplexed men, Joe Welling began to explain.  “Don’t you make a mistake now,” he cried.  “This is something big.”  His voice was shrill with excitement.  “You just follow me, you’ll be interested.  I know you will.  Suppose this—­suppose all of the wheat, the corn, the oats, the peas, the potatoes, were all by some miracle swept away.  Now here we are, you see, in this county.  There is a high fence built all around us.  We’ll suppose that.  No one can get over the fence and all the fruits of the earth are destroyed, nothing left but these wild things, these grasses.  Would we be done for?  I ask you that.  Would we be done for?” Again Tom King growled and for a moment there was silence in the room.  Then again Joe plunged into the exposition of his idea.  “Things would go hard for a time.  I admit that.  I’ve got to admit that.  No getting around it.  We’d be hard put to it.  More than one fat stomach would cave in.  But they couldn’t down us.  I should say not.”

Tom King laughed good naturedly and the shivery, nervous laugh of Edward King rang through the house.  Joe Welling hurried on.  “We’d begin, you see, to breed up new vegetables and fruits.  Soon we’d regain all we had lost.  Mind, I don’t say the new things would be the same as the old.  They wouldn’t.  Maybe they’d be better, maybe not so good.  That’s interesting, eh?  You can think about that.  It starts your mind working, now don’t it?”

In the room there was silence and then again old Edward King laughed nervously.  “Say, I wish Sarah was here,” cried Joe Welling.  “Let’s go up to your house.  I want to tell her of this.”