The old man faced about, and his eye regarded them mildly.  “Putty good,” he said, “they’re my sister’s boys.  She died this last year—­along in April—­and they come on to help.  Yes, they work putty good.”

“They drove in ahead of us, didn’t they?” asked the service man, with sudden thought.

The old man smiled drily.  “Didn’t know’s you see ’em.  You were so occupied.  Yes—­they’d been in to sell the early potatoes.  I’ve got a putty good crop this year—­early potatoes.  They went in to make a price on ’em.  We’ll get seventy-five if we take ’em in to-morrow—­and they asked what to do—­and I told ’em they better dig.”  He chuckled slowly.

The service man smiled.  “You keep ’em moving, don’t you, Jimmie!” He glanced at the house.  “Any trade?  Got a license this year?”

The old man shook his head.  “Bone dry,” he said, chewing slowly.  “Them cars knocked me out!” He came and stood by the racer, running his hand along it with childish touch.

The service man watched him with detached smile.  The old man’s silly shrewdness amused him.  He suspected him of a cask or two in the cellar.  In the days of bicycles the old man had driven a lively trade; but with the long-reaching cars, his business dribbled away, and he had slipped back from whiskey to potatoes.  He was a little disgruntled at events, and would talk socialism by the hour to anyone who would listen.  But he was a harmless old soul.  The service man glanced at the sun.  It had dipped suddenly, and the plain grew dusky black.  The distant figures hoeing against the plain were lost to sight.  “Hallo!” said the service man quickly, “we must get on—­” He looked again, shrewdly, toward the old man in the dusk.  “You couldn’t find a drop of anything, handy—­to give away—­Jimmie?” he suggested.

The old man tottered a slow smile at him and moved toward the house.  He came back with a long-necked bottle grasped tight, and a couple of glasses that he filled in the dimness.

The service man held up his glass with quick gesture—­“Here’s to you, Jimmie!” he said, throwing back his head.  “May you live long, and prosper!” He gulped it down.

The old man’s toothless smile received the empty glasses; and when the two machines had trundled away in the dimness, it stood looking after them—­the deep smile of guileless, crafty old age—­that suffers and waits—­and clutches its morsel at last and fastens on it—­without joy, and without shame.

XXVIII

INSIDE THE LITTLE HOUSE

The two figures amid the rows of the marked garden paused, in the enveloping dusk, and leaned on their hoes, and listened—­a low, peevish whistle, like the call of a night-jar, on the plain, came to them.  Presently the call repeated itself—­three wavering notes—­and they shouldered their hoes and moved toward the little house.

The old man emerged from the gloom, coming toward them.  “What was it?” asked one of the figures quickly.