"Hey, you!" says I, vaultin' the fence.

He jerks his head up a little at that, kind of stares in my direction, and then dives into another hill of spuds.

"Huh!" thinks I. "Don't want any city folks in his'n, by chowder! But here's where he gets 'em thrust on him!" and I pikes over for a closer view. Couldn't see much, though, but dirty overalls, blue outing shirt, and an old haymaker's straw hat with a brim that lops down around his face and ears.

"Excuse me," says I; "but ain't you missin' a trick, or is it because you don't feel sociable to-day? How're the murphies pannin' out this season?"

To see the start he gives, you'd think I'd crept up from behind and swatted him one. He straightens up, backs off a step or two, and opens his mouth. "Why--why----" says he, after one or two gasps. "Who are you, please?"

"Me?" says I. "Oh, I'm just a stray stranger. I was being shot through your cunnin' little State on a no-stop schedule, when one of our tires went out of business. Hence this informal call."

"But," says he, hesitatin' and pushin' back the hat brim, "isn't this--er--aren't you Professor McCabe?"

Say, then it was my turn to do the open face act! Course, knockin' around as much as I have and rubbin' against so many diff'rent kinds of folks, I'm liable to run across people that know me anywhere; but blamed if I expected to do it just walkin' out accidental into a potato orchard.

Sure enough, too, there was something familiar about that long thin nose and the droopy mouth corners; but I couldn't place him. Specially I'd been willin' to pass my oath I'd never known any party that owned such a scatterin' crop of bleached face herbage as he was sportin'. It looked like bunches of old hay on the side of a hill. The stary, faded out blue eyes wa'n't just like any I could remember, either, and I'm gen'rally strong on that point.

"You've called my number, all right," says I; "but, as for returnin' the compliment, you've got me going, neighbor. How do you think I'm looking?"

He makes a weak stab at springin' a smile, about the ghastliest attempt at that sort of thing I ever watched, and then he shrugs his shoulders.

"I--I couldn't say about your looks," says he. "I recognized you by your voice. Perhaps you won't remember me at all. I'm Dexter Bean."

"What!" says I. "Not Beany, that used to do architectin' on the top floor over the studio?"

"Yes," says he.

"And you've forgot my mug so soon?" says I.

"Oh, no!" says he, speakin' up quick. "I haven't forgotten. But I can't see very well now, you know. In fact, I--I'm---- Well, it's almost night time with me, Shorty," and by the way he chokes up I can tell how hard it is for him to get out even that much.

"You don't mean," says I, "that--that you----"

He nods, puts his hands up to his face, and turns his head for a minute.

Well, say, I've had lumps come in my throat once in a while before on some account or other; but I never felt so much like I'd swallowed a prize punkin as I did just then. Most night time! Course, you hear of lots of cases, and you know there's asylums where such people are taken care of and taught to weave cane bottoms for chairs; but I tell you when you get right up against such a case, a party you've known and liked, and it's handed to you sudden that he's almost in the stick tappin'

class--well, it's apt to get you hard. I know it did me. Why, I didn't know any more what to do or say than a goat. But it was my next.

"Well, well, Beany, old boy!" says I, slidin' an arm across his shoulder.

"This is all news to me. Let's get over in the shade and talk this thing over."

"I--I'd like to, Shorty," says he.

So we camps down under a tree next to the fence, and he gives me the story. As he talks, too, it all comes back to me about the first time some of them boys from up stairs towed him down to the studio. He'd drifted in from some Down East crossroads, where he'd taken a course in mechanical drawin' and got the idea that he was an architect. And a greener Rube than him I never expect to see. It was a wonder some milliner hadn't grabbed him and sewed him on a hat before he got to 42d-st.

Maybe that gang of T Square sports didn't find him entertainin', too.

Why, he swallowed all the moldy old bunk yarns they passed over, and when they couldn't hold in any longer, and just let loose the hee-haws, he took it good natured, springin' that kind of sad smile of his on 'em, and not even gettin' red around the ears. So the boss set him to sweepin' the floors and tendin' the blueprint frames on the roof.

That's the way he broke in. Then a few months later, when they had a rush of contracts, they tried him out on some detail work. But his drawin' was too ragged. He was so good natured, though, and so willin' to do anything for anybody, that they kept him around, mainly to spring new gags on, so far as I could see.

It wa'n't until he got at some house plans by accident that they found out where he fitted in. He'd go over a set of them puzzle rolls that mean as much to me as a laundry ticket, and he'd point out where there was room for another clothes closet off some chamber here, and a laundry chute there, and how the sink in the butler's pantry was on the wrong side for a right handed dish washer, and a lot of little details that nobody else would think of unless they'd lived in just such a house for six months or so. Beany the Home Expert, they called him after that, and before any house plans was O. K.'d by the boss he had to revise 'em.

Then he got to hangin' round the studio after hours, helpin' Swifty Joe clean up and listenin' to his enlightenin' conversation. It takes a mighty talented listener to get Swifty started; but when he does get his tongue once limbered up, and is sure of his audience, he enjoys nothin'

like givin' off his views in wholesale lots.

As for me, I never said a whole lot to Beany, nor him to me; but I couldn't help growin' to like the cuss, because he was one of them gentle, quiet kind that you cotton to without knowin' exactly why. Not that I missed him a lot when he disappeared. Fact was, he just dropped out, and I don't know as I even asked what had become of him.

I was hearin' now, though. It wa'n't any great tragedy, to start with.

Some of the boys got skylarkin' one lunch hour, and Beany was watchin'

'em, when a lead paper weight he was holdin' slipped out of his hand, struck the end of a ruler, and flipped it up into his face. A sharp corner hit him in the eye, that's all. He had the sore peeper bound up for three or four days before he took it to a hospital.

When he didn't show up again they wondered some, and one of the firm inquired for him at his old boardin' place. You know how it is in town.

There's so many comin' and goin' that it's hard to keep track of 'em all.

So Beany just faded out.

He told me that when the hospital doctor put it to him flat how bad off his bum lamp was, and how the other was due to go the same way, he just started out and walked aimless for two days and nights, hardly stoppin'.

Then he steadied down, pulled himself together, and mapped out a plan.

Besides architectin', all he knew how to do was to raise chickens. He figured that if he could get a little place off where land was cheap, and get the hang of it well in his head before his glim was doused altogether, he might worry along. He couldn't bear to think of goin' back to his old home, or hangin' around among strangers until he had to be herded into one of them big brick barracks. He wanted to be alone and outdoors.

He had a few dollars with him that he'd saved up, and when he struck this little sand plot, miles from anywhere, he squat right down on it, built his shack, got some settin' hens, and prepared for a long siege in the dark. One eye was all to the bad already, and the other was beginnin' to grow dim. Nice cheerful proposition to wake up to every mornin', wa'n't it?

Does Beany whine any in tellin' it, though? Never a whimper! Gets off his little jokes on himself about the breaks he makes cookin' his meals, such as sweetenin' his coffee out of the salt bag, and bitin' into a cake of bar soap, thinkin' it was a slice of the soggy bread he'd make. Keeps his courage up, too, by trying to think that maybe livin' outdoors and improvin' his health will help him get back his sight.

"I'm sure I am some better already," says he. "For months all I could see out of my left eye was purple and yellow and blue rings. Now I don't see those at all."

"That so?" says I, battin' my head for some come-back that would fit.

"Why--er--I should think you'd miss 'em, Beany."

Brilliant, wa'n't it? But Beany throws back his head and lets out the first real laugh he's indulged in for over a year.

"No, hardly that," says he. "I don't care about carrying my rainbows around with me."

"But look here, Beany," says I. "You can't stay here doin' the poultry hermit act."

"It's the only thing I'm fit for," says he; "so I must."

"Then you've got to let us send you a few things occasionally," says I.

"I'll look up your old boss and----"

"No, no!" says he. "I'm getting along all right. I've been a little lonesome; but I'll pull through."

"You ought to be doin' some doctorin', though," says I.

He shrugs his shoulders again and waves one hand. "What's the use?" says he. "They told me at the hospital there wasn't any help. No, I'll just stay here and plug it out by myself."

Talk about clear grit, eh! And maybe you can frame up my feelin's when he insists there ain't a thing I can do for him. About then, too, I hears 'em shoutin' from the car for me to come along, as they're all ready to start again. So all I does is swap grips with Beany, get off some fool speech about wishin' him luck, and leave him standin' there in the potato field.

Somehow I didn't enjoy the rest of that day's run very much, and when they jollies me by askin' who's my scarecrow acquaintance I couldn't work myself up to tellin' 'em about him. But all I could think of was Beany back there pokin' around alone in the fog that was settlin' down thicker and thicker every day. And in the course of two or three hours I had a thought.