Tilling the soil, if the man who tills be working alone, tends to reflection,—provided that man possesseth wherewith to reflect,—and it promotes straight and simple thinking, thoughts which may be straight and true or they may not; but the thoughts of the tiller of the soil are more likely to be straight and true than the thoughts of the same man riding in a motor-car or working on the twenty-fifth floor of an office building. If such a man be the president of the company it is one thing; he may be puffed up with the pride of a little brief authority or he may be the simple, true man that Old Goodwin is. His sense of the values of things must be warped and distorted unless he tills the soil at times or does something that is equivalent, like sailing the deep blue oceans, where there is so very little between him and the workings of nature; and I do not mean sailing as a passenger in an ocean steamer or a yacht, in which he will have as little to do with the workings of nature as he would in a great hotel.

In such a man the sense of values must be distorted nearly as much, though in a different way, as that of a man who sits at one of an interminable row of desks, on another floor of the same office building, from eight-thirty in the morning until five in the afternoon, with an hour for luncheon; and knows himself to be but a cog in a huge machine, a cog which can and will be replaced as soon as it gives a sign of running unsmoothly. What a dreadful thought that you are but a cog in a machine! How very dreadful it must be to realize that you are growing old and are still nothing but a cog! How pregnant of rebellions, little futile rebellions! And how it must tear the very soul of that man to know beforehand that his rebellions must be little and futile! I can understand that a man in that state would welcome death; that he would be stood up against a wall and shot rather than go back to that desk of the interminable row—number thirteen, it might be. But there is nobody to stand him up against a wall. They will have none of him. He is too old. Too old to be shot, although he may have fighting instincts stirring fiercely within him. So they take his son, it may be, and he goes back to his desk. There is no escape for him. They will not even let him die as a man should in these times. Life is a series of disappointments, and the last is the most bitter. Hope takes herself away until he can hardly see her through the fog.

I was thinking such thoughts as these, leaning on my hoe. I had come out early to work in my garden, and I would start the planting of a row, and the next thing I knew I would find myself standing—or squatting, in accordance with my most recent activity—and gazing out over the waters of the bay, dreaming and musing of the bitterness of disappointment, or of little souls clothed with authority, or of Old Goodwin, and of men like him—if there are such. Old Goodwin's is not a little soul. The first time that I thought on such things and lost myself in thinking, I was using my wheel hoe on the ground between the rows of corn and peas and beans. A wheel hoe is not a thing to lean on, but it fails you when you most need its support, and gives way under you and brings your thoughts to earth with a thump—and you as well, if you are not used to its vagaries and careful. So I took my hand hoe. It is friendly and will bear me up.

It was the twenty-sixth of May, and I had much planting to do, but I did not do it. I thought upon what had happened in the past few days, and I worked my wheel hoe. Wheel-hoeing does not interfere with my thinking. I believe I could do it in my sleep. I have only to walk along slowly, and to work my arms back and forth at every step, and unless the ground is very hard I can think perfectly. My corn showed as little yellowish-green tubes about an inch and a half long, just poked through a couple of days before, it was so cold early in the month; and it has not come up well. As I ran the hoe along beside the row, it was a rank of soldiers—soldiers of the first line. There were great gaps in the line. There have been many gaps, and there will be many more. It has not chanced to hit any friends of mine yet, but it will.

Then I thought upon the report of ten days before, that seven German submarines had been destroyed at sea on their way over here. It was gratifying to know that they had been destroyed, but the report was strangely disquieting to me. If they had sent a fleet of seven, they might send as many more. There was food for thought in that. I had seen no further mention of the matter in the papers, and most probably the report was untrue, but it set me thinking, and I wondered whether the information would not be considered of value to the enemy. If no report of their destruction had been published, Germany might not have known of it for weeks. Weeks of freedom for us knocked in the head by the newspapers.

And I was through with the corn, and had come to the beans, strange grotesque, misshapen things, pushing out of the ground like toads. Some of them were not through yet, but were raising great clods of earth, leaving holes which looked for all the world like toad-holes. There were two that looked like sinking ships. And I thought upon the report of a great naval battle, with many of our ships sunk. I do not believe it. In fact, I have heard vaguely of a denial by our Navy Department. And my eye was caught by a flash of scarlet near some trees by my wall, and there was a tanager. I stopped my hoeing and stood still and watched. It is some years since I have seen a tanager. He flew about in little short flights, aimlessly it seemed, from one low branch to another, then upon the ground, then back to a tree again, paying no attention to me standing like a scarecrow in my garden. Then he perched high and sang his cheerful song, very like a robin's. If I were not noticing nor thinking about it, I might think it a robin's—if I gave it a thought. I have heard that tanagers have been seen this spring in places where they have never been seen before. I have never seen one here, and I hoped this one would stay.

And then that talking machine of my neighbor's began reciting something in a loud voice—"Cohen at the telephone" or some such thing—and my tanager flew away, and I went savagely to my hoeing again. And I thought again of that obsolescent man who is too old to be shot, but not too old to be condemned to a ball and chain; and whose son they have taken while they have scornfully rejected him. And he would fight if they would let him. How he would fight! For there is nothing left for him but to choose the best death he can get. He may not be free even to do that. The father of Jack Ogilvie may be just such a man. I stopped again, and stood holding the handles of my hoe and looking off to sea, and thought of Ogilvie and Bobby and Jimmy Wales going to and fro upon the waters seeking that which is not.

I grasped my hoe handles more tightly, and turned my head, and looked at the dirt before me, and pushed my hoe savagely. What care I how they go to and fro upon the waters? I wander the shores, and I dig my clams, and I am content. But am I? And as I had got to this point in my meditations, from my neighbor's window came the rich voice of Harry Lauder singing "Breakfast in bed on Sunday morning." I smiled to myself—there was nobody to see me if I chose to smile at an absurdity—and my hoe went more and more slowly, for there was no power behind it. And I listened shamelessly to Harry Lauder's last whisper and his last mellow laugh, so that I did not hear the light steps behind me; but I heard the voice that I loved.

"Adam! Adam!" said the voice, chiding. "Listening to Harry Lauder—and enjoying it! Take shame to yourself."

And I turned, and saw Eve, and Tidda with her. Eve was smiling, and I smiled back at her.

"Surely, Eve," I said, "a man may rest when he is weary. And if my neighbor choose to have a talking machine spouting out of his window, I cannot stop him. I wish I could. Imagine Judson with a talking machine!"

"I can imagine it very easily. The dear old man would have enjoyed it, I am sure. And if it gives them pleasure, Adam—why, some of the things give you pleasure. You needn't try to deny it."

"I don't, Eve. I deny nothing. But some of the things are—"

Eve nodded. "Yes," she said, "some of them certainly are. But they needn't bother you much."

At that moment we heard a giggle from somewhere on the other side of the wall, and something came whizzing. It was nothing but an old rotten piece of wood, and it fell short, but it stirred Tidda.

"I'm going after that Sands girl," she cried. "She shan't fire old pieces of wood at us." And she set off at top speed straight for the wall. Tidda is not becoming obsolescent.

I would have stopped her.

"No," Eve said. "Let her go. It can't do any harm." She dismissed the matter from her mind. "Tell me, Adam, what made you so savage as we were coming up. What were you thinking about?"

I laughed rather shamefacedly. "It was of no consequence, Eve. I was thinking that life, for some people, is just one disappointment after another." I must remember that Eve has pacifist tendencies.

Eve looked up at me with sober eyes.

"Were you thinking of anything in particular?"

"Of the unimportant men in a great office with long rows of desks and endless routine; especially of men who are growing old in it and can see no escape. I was thinking of the same thing, I remember, on Wednesday, down on the shore. It was a driving drizzle from the northeast, and gray, with rolling seas. It made the round of an office seem so futile and so useless. I envied Jimmy and Bobby and Ogilvie, off on patrol. I would have liked to be on patrol myself."

"Would you?" asked Eve. There was speculation in her eyes—and something else that I had seen there before. I could not fathom it. "How many of the men in the office—the men who are growing old—would exchange the comforts of the office for a driving drizzle out of the northeast, and gray and rolling seas—and a motor-boat? Not one in ten."

"It was that one I was thinking of."

Eve looked away from me and nodded slowly.

"Can't you leave your gardening? Come and sit down."

So I left my tools in the field, as a poor farmer leaves his tools where he has last used them in the fall, the plough beside the furrow, and the mowing-machine and the horserake at the edge of the meadow; and in the spring he is sorrowful, and wonders and bemoans the winter. And Eve took my hand in hers, and we went to my great pine and sat us down upon the bench. And, behind us, came Tidda over the wall, dragging the reluctant Sands girl, who giggled and held back; and they sat by the hole that is scooped in the ground and lined with great stones, for they would play at having a clambake. The chatter of our daughter's tongue was like an accompaniment; and nobody pays any attention to an accompaniment.

"Now, Adam," said Eve, "for the important business. You know we decided that Jack Ogilvie must have had a birthday, or he would not have got his commission. I have been making inquiries. He did; and I find that everybody can come next Saturday, probably,—a week from to-day."

Eve looked thoughtful and counted up on her fingers, which I released for the purpose—"the second of June. Do you think, Adam," she went on, "that clams will be ripe on the second of June?"

I laughed. "We can see. But many things will be lacking which belong to a clambake. Do you want me to issue a call to the Clam Beds Protective Company?"

"Oh, yes, Adam. How will it run? To assemble, at their armory,—that is the bank above the clam beds,—in uniform, with arms and accoutrements, an hour before low tide. When will that be? But never mind. And shall I tell father?" She glanced toward the hole scooped in the ground. "He will be glad to—but mercy on us, Adam, where is Tidda?"

She sighed and started to her feet. I laughed, and pointed along the shore.

"Stole away," I said. Tidda and the Sands girl were picking their way among the great pebbles of the shore, Tidda with light feet skipping from pebble to pebble, the Sands girl going more cautiously and clumsily.

Eve sighed again. "We may as well follow. There is no knowing what they will be up to next."

So I rose and we turned to follow, and there was Elizabeth Radnor not ten steps away, smiling and regarding us with friendly eyes. As she drew near her eyes looked gray-green, not hazel, calm and humorous and knowing. Perhaps they are of the changeable kind. I have seen changeable eyes before. I would like to know what thoughts lie behind those eyes to give them their peculiar light. And at a guess I think that Bobby would give something to know. But they were friendly eyes, and they gave you a look that was straight and true.

"Oh, Elizabeth,"—Eve has got that far with her, which is in her favor. I have never yet known Eve to be deceived in people—"Oh, Elizabeth, we have to go after Tidda, just along the shore. Will you come? Tidda leads us a chase. Her spirit of adventure will lead her into trouble."

Elizabeth laughed. We were descending the steep path to the shore.

"I'm afraid I had a spirit of adventure as great as Tidda's," she said; "fortunately no disaster happened to me, although I must have been rather a trial to my mother. And as to going into the water when I shouldn't—why, I was in the water all the time—whenever I could get in. You see the unhappy result. We were poor, you know; in what is called straitened circumstances. My father died when I was a little tot, and we never had a maid until a few years ago. You go on in your own way. It is pretty sure to be right."

I do not know whether Eve thought Elizabeth was referring to the path, but she turned and began to descend again.

"I'm glad you think so," she flung back over her shoulder, "but I am not so sure. I really think that it would be better for Tidda if she were left more to her own devices—she has plenty—but I just can't do it."

We had got down to the shore, and Elizabeth turned to me.

"I am always saying things," she said, "that I don't mean. It is one of the results of too much freedom."

"So am I," I replied, "and this is one of them."

And Elizabeth looked at me queerly, and laughed suddenly, and looked away. I wondered if she understood. I wondered further about her. A reputation for unconsidered speech is the best of protections for secrets. I did not believe that she was generally guilty of unconsidered speech. And we had come to the clam beds, but the bank was too wet to sit on, and we stood around until I found some stones that were dry, and we sat on the stones in a row, like three crows. Eve said nothing to Tidda and the Sands girl, but watched them as they pulled off their stockings. And, Tidda having trouble with hers, as usual, Eve got up from her stone and helped her.

While Eve was busy with stockings, I spoke.

"Miss Radnor," I said, "what—"

She was gazing fixedly at the water over the clam beds—there was about a foot of it—and her thoughts were far away. But at the sound of her name she started almost imperceptibly, and looked at me, and smiled.

"My name is Elizabeth," she said, interrupting. "Perhaps you didn't know it. Yes, that is a hint."

Her eyes were like deep pools under a summer sun, and all sorts of colors played over them, flashing and sparkling gently and merrily, so that there was no telling what depths lay beneath, or what in the depths—except humor. They seemed to be looking always for a joke, and usually finding one too good to tell. What else they were looking for I did not know, but there was something.

"Thank you," I replied. "I take hints on occasion. And my name is Adam. That is a hint too. If you can reconcile the use of it with the respect due to age,—to a man too old to fight,—I shall be glad. It is a very old name and quite respectable."

She nodded and laughed. "Thank you, Adam. But you were going to ask me something."

"I was going to ask you, Elizabeth, if you know what has become of Bobby. We haven't seen him for a long time."

The pools flashed and sparkled once more. "Why do you ask me? Am I Bobby's keeper?"

"You seemed to be. And you transferred him, and we haven't seen him since."

"Captain Fergus transferred him. I have no doubt that he will turn up in time."

Eve had finished with the stockings, and she came and sat down again upon her stone, while the children splashed noisily into that foot of water. Tidda had a stout stick, and she began immediately to poke about with it.

"Who will turn up in time?" asked Eve. "What are you talking about?"

"Bobby," I answered. "I wish I could share Elizabeth's faith. I must notify Bobby."

"I think you will have an opportunity," said Elizabeth, "if you have a little patience."

"I will notify you meanwhile, Elizabeth. The Clam Beds Protective Company meets here next Saturday at nine o'clock. In uniform, with arms and equipment. If you lack anything, speak to Eve. I'm sorry to make it quite so early, but the tide, you know—and Eve has set the day."

"I'm going to have a birthday party for Jack Ogilvie, Elizabeth. It's a little late, but I didn't know in time, and Jimmy and Bobby and Ogilvie can come then, I think. I wish you'd tell me something more about him."

"About Jack? What shall I tell you? I've known him always, since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. He's as good as there is made. His family are nice people, with a very moderate income, just about enough to keep them going, and not enough to put him through college, although they would be willing to sacrifice a good deal to do it. But Jack prefers to put himself through, and he was doing it very well until he went into the navy. He has been preparing for that for a year or more. He doesn't make nearly as much in the navy, even as an ensign—but I don't know about that. I guess he does. An ensign's pay is pretty good for a boy of twenty-one."

"And his father," Eve pursued; "what does he do? Is he in some great office, grinding away for Jack?"

Elizabeth smiled again. "No. He is a country doctor, and a very good one. I don't know what the town would do without him. But a country doctor, you know, can't make much."

"I'm glad," said Eve.

"Why? Because he can't make much?"

Eve laughed. "Glad that he's a doctor. I wish I could manage to swell his income."

Tidda and the Sands girl had been pursuing the elusive clam with some success. Tidda's hands were full of clams which she had dug out with the stick and her hands, burrowing into the sand and mud under the water, and her skirt was wet, and her sleeves were wet nearly to the shoulder. I called Eve's attention to that fact as she splashed out, ran to the bank, and deposited her clams in an old rusty tin can with jagged edges, which she drew from some hiding place evidently in familiar use. She must have done that same thing many times, and this was the first that we knew of it.

Eve glanced up and smiled.

"Never mind, Adam. Let them have their fun. I'll put dry clothes on her when we get home." Then she turned again to Elizabeth. "And Olivia," she said, "is—"

"I think," said Elizabeth, interrupting, "that Olivia is coming now."

As she spoke there was a slight rustling in the path through the greenery, and Olivia emerged upon the edge of the bank. She was stepping lightly, diffident and hesitating, a hand over her heart. It was like a young doe coming out of the woods.

"Oh!" she said. "I beg your pardon."

And Elizabeth laughed silently, mostly with her eyes; but Eve rose and went to meet Olivia.

"What's the joke, Elizabeth?" I asked in her ear. "Tell me, won't you?"

She turned merry eyes to mine. "Olivia's the joke," she said. "I can't explain, but if you knew her as well as I do—"

She did not finish, for Eve was speaking.

"We were just thinking of you, Olivia."

"How very nice of you! May I come?"

She advanced—still with that diffident and hesitating step like a doe's. I got up and offered her my stone.

Olivia looked startled; but Olivia had a way of looking startled, so it seemed.

"Oh," she protested, "oh, I don't want to take your seat."

"Don't feel that you are putting me to an inconvenience," I said. "That stone is harder than it was. I am sorry that we can offer you nothing better than a stone, but it is all we have."

And Olivia laughed politely, and took my stone, and looked about.

"Clams!" she cried. "I have dug clams."

"Many?" I asked.

Olivia looked up at me and laughed again. "Oh, a good many," she replied, "in all sorts of places; and baked them too."

"A recruit for our company," I said, looking at Elizabeth and Eve. "Will you join the company?" I asked Olivia.

"I shall be glad to," she answered. "What is it?"

And Eve laughed, and I explained, and Olivia seemed delighted. But Elizabeth was more amused than ever.

"What is it now, Elizabeth?"

"Olivia knows," said she.

"Elizabeth!" Olivia cried from her stone. "I didn't either come for—"

She stopped suddenly, her hand over her mouth.

"If she came for that purpose, Elizabeth," I said, "she is to be commended. Do you think that Captain Fergus and Mrs. Fergus would join? Would you speak to them about it?"

And Elizabeth signified that she would, and there was other noise in the path through the greenery, a noise which was something more than a rustling, and Old Goodwin appeared, and behind him came Bobby. When Bobby appeared, I looked hard at Elizabeth, but I could detect no sign of confusion. She is so sunburned and tanned that a flush would not show anyway.

"What did you tell me about Bobby, Elizabeth?"

She looked up. "I don't remember. Nothing that wasn't true."

Her eyes were filled with light, but she veiled them quickly, and Bobby wandered over to us. Old Goodwin had sat him down on the bank, and Tidda had put into his hands some more clams dripping mud, and was asking his advice, her elbows on his knees; and he listened soberly and with interest.

Eve told Bobby of the meeting of our company for the next week and the party.

He turned to me. "Doesn't that notice have to be in writing?" he asked.

I shook my head. "You'd better accept it. The whole company will turn out. It's to be a party for Ogilvie—birthday party."

And Olivia pricked up her ears at that, and listened shamelessly while Eve told Bobby about it.

"That's very good of you, Eve," he said, when she had finished. "I'll tell Jimmy, and I'll get word to Ogilvie. We can come unless something turns up. Something may turn up, you know, at any minute. We never know. If a fleet of submarines should get over here, and should start getting caught in our traps we'd have to go."

"Traps all set, Bobby?" I asked.

"Set but not baited," he replied. "I'm looking for bait now, likely-looking little pigs, Adam, and for somebody to feed 'em, and keep 'em squealing. It would be interesting work, and a pleasant sail every day. If you were really patriotic you'd be glad to do that much for your country. But you won't. I see it in your eye. I'll have to do it myself."

And he heaved a prodigious sigh, and turned to Elizabeth and Olivia, and he began to talk lightly with them; and Olivia's face was all eagerness and light and gentleness. She was beautiful so. Bobby noticed it, and smiled at her, and talked to her for a minute or so, and she listened in a sort of silent rapture, which Elizabeth observed. And Bobby, glancing at Elizabeth, saw the changing light in those two deep pools, and saw her half-smile of amusement, and forgot what he was saying to Olivia, and stopped.

"You know, Miss Radnor," he said, forgetting the rest of us, "I have to go in half an hour." It was a sort of challenge.

She nodded, still smiling that half-smile of amusement. "I know."

"Well?"

Thereupon Eve rose quietly from her stone, and dragged Olivia up from hers, much against her will, and they wandered off to see the children at their clamming; but she gave me a significant look as she went. So I obediently drifted off along the shore. I was sorry to go, for I would have liked to hear what followed. And I drifted back again, and to and fro, like a shadow, but always Bobby was talking earnestly to Elizabeth, and Elizabeth looked up at Bobby, and laughed and shook her head. And at last Elizabeth rose, and they two wandered off down the shore toward Old Goodwin's stone pier. I caught a word or two of Bobby's as they went. I thought he was asking her what she was. "What are you?" was all I heard; and she replied, very probably, that she was a teacher of swimming and dancing. And she turned and waved her hand to us, and they were gone.

Then Eve stirred, and called Tidda, who came hugging close her old tin can dripping mud down upon her dress. Olivia was already on the path to the great house, but Old Goodwin turned back.

"Adam," he said, smiling, "I have retired from business. I thought you might like to know. It seemed as good a time as any."

It was what I have been urging upon him these ten years.

"There will be enough to keep me occupied," he added, answering my unspoken question. "A matter that I have in mind. I will tell you about it soon."

And he turned again, and was gone up the path.

I walked with Eve along the shore, and I wondered. I must have been mistaken in those words of Bobby's. How could he have asked her that?

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