The next day the painters left for good. Hard Cider had completed his tasks, Mike had no further need for his son Joe till haying time, and I no longer had an excuse for putting off my departure from Bert's and my embarkation upon the dubious seas of housekeeping with Mrs. Pillig at the wheel and son Peter as cabin boy. So I sent word to Mrs. Pillig to be ready to come the next morning, asked Mrs. Bert to order for me the necessary stock of groceries from the village, and gave myself up to the joys of transplanting. It was a cloudy day, with rain threatening, so that Mike assured me I could not find a better time. Miss Goodwin worked by my side, her task consisting of a careful perusal of the seed catalogue and a planting table. What colour were the flowers? How far apart should the plants be set? How tall did they grow? My ignorance was as profound as hers. But perhaps that added to the pleasure. It did to mine, at any rate. I was experimenting with the unknown.

I've set many a seedling since and needed no table to tell me how, but I have never recaptured quite the glee of that soft, cloudy June morning, when my shiny new trowel transferred unknown plants to the flats on the wheelbarrow, and a voice beside me read:

"'Phlox Drummondi. This is one of the finest annuals, being hardy, easy of cultivation, and making as a summer bedding plant an effective and brilliant display. The flowers are of long duration and of most gorgeous and varied colours. One foot. One fourth ounce, special mixture; contains all the finest and most brilliant colours.' Wait, now, P — ph — phlox — my, this is like the dictionary! Here we are! Plant twelve inches apart. My goodness, if you plant all those twelve inches apart, you'll fill the whole farm! Where are you going to put them?"

"Why not around the sundial?" said I. "They appear to be low and of a superlative variety of brilliant colour. And they're an old-fashioned posy."

"Everything is superlative in a seed catalogue, I observe," she smiled. "Peter Bell could never have written a successful catalogue, could he? Yes, I think they'd be lovely round the sundial, with something tall on the outside, in clumps. Something white, like the pillar, to show them off."

We wheeled out the phlox plants and set them in the circular beds ringing the sundial, working on boards laid down on the ground, for my grass seed was sprouting, if rather spindly and in patches. Then we returned for something tall and white. Alas! we went over the catalogue once, twice, three times, but there was nothing in my seed bed which would do! The stock was little higher than the phlox. White annual larkspur would have served, if there had been any — but there wasn't.

"It's the last time anybody else ever picks my seeds for me!" I declared. "Gee, I'll know a few things by next year."

"Gee, but you must fill up those sundial beds, this year," said she. "Oh, dear, I did want some tall clumps of white on the outside!"

"Well, here are asters. Asters are white, sometimes. See if these are. Giant comet, that sounds rather exciting. Also, debutante. They ought to be showy. Most debutantes are nowadays."

She scanned my box of empty seed envelopes. "Oh, dear, the giant comets are mixed," she said. "But" — with a look at the catalogue — "the debutantes are white. They grow only a foot and a half, but they are white."

"Well, they'll have to fox trot round the dial, then," said I.

I dug them up, and we put them in clumps in the irregularities on the outside edges of the beds, first filling the holes part full of water, as I had seen Mike do with the cauliflower plants.

"Let me do some," she pleaded. "Here I've been reading the old catalogue all the morning, while you've been digging in the nice dirt."

She kneeled on the board, holding a plant caressingly in her hand, and with her naked fingers set it and firmed it in the moist earth. Then she set a second, and a third, holding up her grimy fingers gleefully.

"Oh, you nice earth!" she finally exclaimed, digging both hands eagerly in to the wrists.

After dinner we spaded up little beds at the foot of each pillar of the rose arch, and put flowers in each of them, facing the house, set a row of Phlox Drummondi along the line where the grape arbour was to be, to mark more clearly the western edge of the lawn, and finally took a load of the remaining seedlings, of various sorts, down to the brook, just below the orchard, where I planned some day to build a pool and develop a lovely garden nook. Here the soil was black and rich for a foot or more in depth, and after spading and raking out the weeds and grasses we had four little beds, though roughly and hastily made, two on each side of the stream, with the future pool, as it were, in the centre. These we filled with the remaining seedlings, helter skelter, just for a splash of colour, and watered from the brook itself.

Then we straightened our stiff backs, and scurried for shelter from the coming rain. We reached Bert's just as the first big drops began to fall.

"Nice rain!" she cried, turning to look at it from under the porch. "You'll give all the flowers a drink, and they'll live and be beautiful in the garden of Twin Fires."

"Do you like flowers as well as philology, really?" I asked.

"I don't see what's to prevent my liking both," she smiled, as she disappeared up the stairs.

The next day it was still raining. I set off alone to make ready for the arrival of the Pilligs. I was standing on my kitchen porch talking to Mike when they arrived. It was a memorable moment. I heard the sound of wheels, and looked up. A wagon was approaching, driven by an old man. Beside him, beneath a cotton umbrella, sat a thin woman in black, with gray hair and a worried look. Behind them, on a battered trunk, sat Peter, who was not thin, who wore no worried look, and who chewed gum. Beneath the wagon, invisible at first, trotted a mud-bespattered yellow pup. The wagon stopped.

"Good morning, Mr. Upton," said Mrs. Pillig. "This is me and Peter."

"Where's Buster?" said Peter.

At the word Buster, the yellow pup emerged from beneath the cart, wagging the longest tail, in proportion to the dog, ever seen on a canine. It would be more correct to say that the tail wagged him, for with every excited motion his whole body was undulated to the ears, to counterbalance that tail.

I went out and aided Mrs. Pillig to alight, and then Mike and I lifted the trunk to the porch. I looked at the dog, which had also joined us on the porch, where he was leaving muddy paw marks.

"Do I understand that Buster is also an arrival?" said I.

"Oh, dear me, Mr. Upton, you must excuse me," Mrs. Pillig cried anxiously. "Mrs. John Barker's boy Leslie gave Buster to Peter a month ago, and of course I sent him right back, but he wouldn't stay back, and yesterday we took him away again, and this morning he just suddenly appeared behind the wagon, and I told Peter he couldn't come, and Peter cried, and Buster wouldn't go back, and I'll make Peter take him away just as soon as the rain stops."

"Well, I hadn't bargained on Buster, that's a fact," said I. I didn't like dogs; most people don't who've never had one. But he was such a forlornly muddy mongrel pup, and so eloquent of tail, that I spoke his name on an impulse, and put out my hand. The great tail wagged him to the ears, and with the friendliest of undulations he was all at once close to me, with his nose in my palm. Then he suddenly sat up on his hind legs, dangled his front paws, looked me square in the eyes, and barked.

That was too much for me. "Peter," said I, "you may keep Buster."

"Golly, I'd 'a' had a hard time not to," said that young person, immediately making for the barn, with Buster at his heels.

Mrs. Pillig and I went inside. While she was inspecting the kitchen, Mike and I carried her trunk up the back stairs.

"I hope your bed comes to-day," said I, returning. "You see, the house is largely furnished from my two rooms at college, and there was hardly enough to go around."

Mrs. Pillig looked into the south room. "Did you have all them books in your two rooms at college?" she asked.

I nodded.

"They must 'a' been pretty big rooms," she said. "Books is awful things to keep dusted."

"Which reminds me," I smiled, leading her over to my desk, at which I pointed impressively. "Woman!" said I, in sepulchral tones, "that desk is never to be dusted, never to be touched. Not a paper is to be removed from it. No matter how dirty, how littered it gets, never touch it under pain of death!"

She looked at me a second with her worried eyes wide open, and then a smile came over her wan, thin face.

"I guess you be n't so terrible as you sound," she said. "But I won't touch it. Anything else I'm not to touch?"

"Yes," I answered. "The ashes in those two fireplaces. The ashes there are never to be taken out, no matter if they are piled a foot thick, and spill all over the floor. A noble pile of ashes is a room's best recommendation. Those are the only two orders I have. In all else, I'm at your mercy. But on those two points you are at mine — and I have none!"

"Well, I reckon I'll wash the kitchen windows," said Mrs. Pillig.

I was sawing up a few more sticks from the orchard, when the express man drove up with the beds, the crockery, and so on. I called son Peter, who responded with Buster at his heels. "Peter," said I, "you and I'll now set up the beds. You ought to be in school, though, by the way. Why aren't you?"

"Hed ter bring maw over here," said Peter.

"That's too bad. Aren't you sorry?"

Peter grinned at me and slowly winked. I was very stern. "Nevertheless, you'll have a lesson," I said. "You shall tell me the capitals of all the states while we set up your bed."

Peter and I carried the beds, springs, and mattresses upstairs, and while we were joining the frames I began with Massachusetts and made him tell me all the capitals he could. We got into a dispute over the capital of Montana, Peter maintaining it was Butte, and I defending Helena. The debate waxed warm, and suddenly Buster appeared upon the scene, his tail following him up the stairs, to see what the trouble was. He began to leave mud tracks all over the freshly painted floor, so that we had to grab him up and wipe his paws with a rag. Peter held him while I wiped, and we fell to laughing, and forgot Montana.

"You'll have to get rubbers for him," said I.

This idea amused Peter tremendously. "Gee, rubbers on a dog!" he cried. "Buster'd eat 'em off in two seconds. Say, where's Buster goin' to sleep?"

We had to turn aside on our way downstairs for more furniture to make Buster a bed in a box full of excelsior in the shed. We put him in it, and went back to the porch. Buster followed us. We took him back, and put him in the box once more. He whacked the sides with his tail, as if he enjoyed the game — and jumped out as soon as we turned away.

"Gee, he's too wide awake now," said Peter.

So we fell over Buster for the rest of the morning. I never saw a dog before nor since who could so successfully get under your feet as Buster. If I started upstairs with the frame of a pine bureau on my back, Buster was on the third step, between my legs. If I was carrying in a stack of plates from the barrel of crockery, Buster was wedged in the screen door, pushing it open ahead of me, to let it snap back in my face. When I scolded him, he undulated his silly yellow body, sprang upon his hind legs, and licked my hands. If I tried to kick him, he regarded it as a game, and bit my shoe lace. Peter's shoe laces, I noted, were in shreds. But Buster disappeared after a time, and Peter and I got the china and kitchenware all in, and Mrs. Pillig had it washed and in the cupboards before he reappeared. He came down the front stairs with one of my bath slippers in his mouth, and, with a profoundly proud undulation of tail and body, laid it at my feet for me to throw, barking loudly. We all laughed, but I took the slipper and beat him with it, while Peter appeared on the verge of tears.

"No, Buster," I cried. "You keep out of doors. Peter, put him out."

Peter resentfully deposited the pup on the porch, and took my slipper back upstairs. Meanwhile, Buster, after looking wistfully through the screen door a second, pushed it open with his nose and paw and reentered, immediately sitting up on his hind legs and gazing into my eyes with the most human look I ever saw.

"Buster," said I, "you are the limit. Very well, stay in. I give up!"

Buster plopped down on all fours, as if he understood perfectly, and took a bite at my shoe string. I patted his head. I had to. The pup was irresistible.

"And what time will you have your dinner?" asked Mrs. Pillig. "There's no meat in the house. Guess you forgot to order the butcher to stop; but there's eggs."

"Eggs will do," said I, "and one o'clock. Bert has his at twelve, but I want mine at one. Maybe I shall have a guest."

"A guest!" she cried. "You wouldn't be puttin' a guest on me the first mornin'!"

"Well, it's doubtful, I'm afraid," I answered. "Perhaps I'll wait till to-morrow night, and have three guests for supper — just Bert and his wife and their boarder — sort of a housewarming, you know. I want you to make a pie."

"Well, I reckon I can wait on table stylish enough for Mrs. Temple," said she, "and I'll make a lemon pie that'll make Bert Temple sorry he didn't marry me."

"I shouldn't want you to wreck Bert's domestic happiness," said I, "but make the pie, just the same!"

I went into the south room, and sat at my desk answering some letters, while I waited for dinner. I could hear the rattle of dishes in the kitchen — the first of those humble domestic sounds which we associate with the word home. Through the house, too, and in to me, floated the aroma of bacon and of coffee, faintly, just detectable, mingled with the smell of earth under June rain, which drifted through an open window. Presently I heard the front door open very softly. As I guessed that Peter had his instructions in behaviour from his mother, I knew it must be Miss Goodwin. My pen poised suspended over the paper. I waited for her to enter the room, in a pleasant tingle of expectation. But she did not enter. Several minutes passed, and I got up to investigate, but there was no sign of her. The front door, however, stood ajar. Then Mrs. Pillig called "Dinner!"

I walked into my dining-room, and sat down at the table, which was covered with a new tablecloth and adorned with my new china. Beside my plate was the familiar, old-fashioned silver I had eaten with when a boy, and the sight of it thrilled me. Then I spied the centrepiece — a glass vase bearing three fresh iris buds from the brookside. Here was the secret, then, of the open door! Mrs. Pillig came in with the platter of eggs and bacon, and she, too, spied the flowers.

"Well, well, you've got yourself a bookay," she said.

"Not I," was my answer. "They just came. Mrs. Pillig, there's a fairy lives in this house, a nice, thoughtful fairy, who does things like this. If you ever see her, don't be frightened."

Mrs. Pillig looked at me pityingly. "I'll bring your toast and coffee now," she said.

The coffee came in steaming, and it was good coffee, much better than Mrs. Bert's. The eggs were good, too. But best of all was the centrepiece. She had come in so softly, and gone so quickly, and nobody had seen her! She had been present at my first meal in

"Well, well, you've got yourself a bookay," she said

Twin Fires, after all, and so delicately present, just in the subtle fragrance of flowers and the warm token of thoughtfulness! My meal was a very happy one, happier even, perhaps, than it would have been had she sat opposite me in person. We are curious creatures, who can on occasion extract a sweeter pleasure from our dreams of others in loneliness than from their bodily presence. Mrs. Pillig fluttered in and out, to see if I was faring well, and though her service was not that of a trained waitress it sufficed to bring me dessert of some canned peaches, buried under my own rich cream, and to remind me that my wants were solicitously cared for. Out on the porch I could see Peter playing with Buster and hear that ingratiating pup's yelps of canine delight. Before me stood the purple iris blooms, with golden hearts just opening, their slender stems rising from the clear water in the vase, and spoke of her whose thought of me was so gracious, so delicately expressed, so warming to my heart. The spoon I held bore my mother's initials, reminding me of my childhood, of that other home which death had broken up ten years before, since when I had called no place home save my study and bedroom high above the college Yard. I thought of the Yard — pleasantly, but without regrets. I looked through the window as my last spoonful of dessert was eaten, and saw the sky breaking into blue. I folded my new napkin, put it into the old silver ring which bore the word "John" on the side, failed utterly to note the absence of a finger-bowl, and rose from my first meal in Twin Fires.

"I have a home again," said I, aloud; "I have a home again after ten years!"

Then I went up the road toward Bert's.