I had a curious warm feeling of being taken along with that jolly crowd
of workmen, with Bill on the top of the load.

It was this that finished me. I hurried through an early dinner, and
taking the tape measure off the mantel I put it in my pocket as though
it were a revolver or a bomb, and went off up the road feeling as
adventurous as ever I felt in my life. I never said a word to Harriet
but disappeared quietly around the lilac bushes. I was going to waylay
that crew, and especially Bill. I hoped to catch them at their nooning.

Well, I was lucky. About a quarter of a mile up the road, in a little
valley near the far corner of Horace's farm, I found the truck, and Bill
just getting out his dinner pail. It seems they had flipped pennies and
Bill hod been left behind with the truck and the tools while the others
went down to the mill pond in the valley below.

"How are you?" said I.

"How are _you_?" said he.

I could see that he was rather cross over having been left behind.

"Fine day," said I.

"You bet," said he.

He got out his pail, which was a big one, and seated himself on the
roadside, a grassy, comfortable spot near the brook which runs below
into the pond. There were white birches and hemlocks on the hill, and