"Look here," I suggested, holding out a five-dollar bill, "I want a Wishing Cap. Let me take this, will you?"

"The house is yours!" she laughed.

Over on the candy counter was a tray of corncob pipes. I helped myself to one, to a package of tobacco and a box of matches. I hung my derby on the vacant peg behind the door. Then I turned to my hostess.

"You're a good girl," I said. "Good luck to you."

For a moment something softer came into her eyes.

"And good luck to you, sir!" she replied. As I pa.s.sed down the steps she threw after me: "I hope you'll find--what you're looking for!"

In my old felt hat and smoking my corncob I trudged along the road in the mellow sunlight, almost happy. By and by I reached the trolley line; and for five cents, in company with a heterogeneous lot of country folks, Italian laborers and others, was transported an absurdly long distance across the state of New York to a wayside station.

There I sat on a truck on the platform and chatted with a husky, broad-shouldered youth, who said he was the "baggage smasher," until finally a little smoky train appeared and bore me southward. It was the best holiday I had had in years--and I was sorry when we pulled into Pleasantdale and I took to my legs again.

In the fading afternoon light it indeed seemed a pleasant, restful place. Comfortable cottages, each in its own yard, stood in neighborly rows along the shaded street. Small boys were playing football in a field adjoining a schoolhouse.

Presently the buildings became more scattered and I found myself following a real country road, though still less than half a mile from the station. Ahead it divided and in the resulting triangle, behind a well-clipped hedge, stood a pretty cottage with a red roof--Hastings', I was sure.

I tossed away my pipe and opened the gate. A rather pretty woman of about thirty-five was reading in a red hammock; there were half a dozen straw easy chairs and near by a teatable, with the kettle steaming. Mrs.

Hastings looked up at my step on the gravel path and smiled a welcome.

"Jim has been playing golf over at the club--he didn't expect you until five," she said, coming to meet me.

"I don't care whether he comes or not," I returned gallantly. "I want to see you. Besides, I'm as hungry as a bear." She raised her eyebrows. "I had only an egg or so and a gla.s.s of milk for luncheon, and I have walked--miles!"

"Oh!" she exclaimed. I could see she had had quite a different idea of her erstwhile employer; but my statement seemed to put us on a more friendly footing from the start.

"I love walking too," she hastened to say. "Isn't it wonderful to-day?

We get weeks of such weather as this every autumn." She busied herself over the teacups and then, stepping inside the door for a moment, returned with a plate piled high with b.u.t.tered toast, and another with sandwiches of grape jelly.

"Carmen is out," she remarked; "otherwise you should be served in greater style."

"Carmen?"

"Carmen is our maid, butler and valet," she explained. "It's such a relief to get her out of the way once in a while and have the house all to oneself. That's one of the reasons I enjoy our two-weeks' camping trip so much every summer."

"You like the woods?"

"Better than anything, I think--except just being at home here. And the children have the time of their lives--fishing and climbing trees, and watching for deer in the boguns."

The gate clicked at that moment and Hastings, golf bag on shoulders, came up the path. He looked lean, brown, hard and happy.

"Just like me to be late!" he apologized. "I had no idea it would take me so long to beat Colonel Bogey."

"Your excuses are quite unnecessary. Mrs. Hastings and I have discovered that we are natural affinities," said I.

My stenographer, quite at ease, leaned his sticks in a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea and a couple of sandwiches, which in my opinion rivaled my eggs and milk of the early afternoon. My walk had made me comfortably tired; my lungs were distended with cool country air; my head was clear, and this domestic scene warmed the c.o.c.kles of my heart.

"How is the Chicopee & Shamrock reorganization coming on?" asked Hastings, striving to be polite by suggesting a congenial subject for conversation.

"I don't know," I retorted. "I've forgotten all about it until Monday morning. On the other hand, how are your children coming on?"

"Sylvia is out gathering chestnuts," answered Mrs. Hastings, "and Tom is playing football. They'll be home directly. I wonder if you wouldn't like Jim to show you round our place?"

"Just the thing," I answered, for I guessed she had household duties to perform.

"Of course you'll stay to supper?" she pressed me.

I hesitated, though I knew I should stay, all the time.

"Well--if it really won't put you out," I replied. "I suppose there are evening trains?"

"One every hour. We'll get you home by ten o'clock."

"I'll have to telephone," I said, remembering my wife's regular Sat.u.r.day-night bridge party.

"That's easily managed," said Hastings. "You can speak to your own house right from my library."

Again I barefacedly excused myself to my butler on the ground of important business. As we strolled through the gateway we were met by a st.u.r.dy little boy with tousled hair. He had on an enormous gray sweater and was hugging a pigskin.

"We beat 'em!" he shouted, unabashed by my obviously friendly presence.

"Eighteen to nothing!"

"Tom is twelve," said Hastings with a shade of pride in his voice. "Yes, the schools here are good. I expect to have him ready for college in five years more."

"What are you going to make of him?" I asked.

"A civil engineer, I think," he answered. "You see, I'm a crank on fresh air and building things--and he seems to be like me. This cooped-up city life is pretty narrowing, don't you think?"

"It's fierce!" I returned heartily, with more warmth than elegance.

"Sometimes I wish I could chuck the whole business and go to farming."

"Why not?" he asked as we climbed a small rise behind the house. "Here's my farm--fifteen acres. We raise most of our own truck."

Below the hill a cornfield, now yellow with pumpkins, stretched to the farther road. Nearer the house was a kitchen garden, with an apple orchard beyond. A man in shirtsleeves was milking a cow behind a tiny barn.

"I bought this place three years ago for thirty-nine hundred dollars,"

said my stenographer. "They say it is worth nearer six thousand now.

Anyhow it is worth a hundred thousand to me!"

A little girl, with bulging ap.r.o.n, appeared at the edge of the orchard and came running toward us.

"What have you got there?" called her father.

"Oh, daddy! Such lovely chestnuts!" cried the child. "And there are millions more of them!"