"Horace, how much did you get for your hay this year?"

"Off that one little piece," he replied, "I figger fifty-two dollars."

"Well, Horace," said I, "I have beaten you. I got more out of it this
year than you did."

"Oh, I know what you mean----"

"No, Horace, you don't. This time I mean just what you do: money, cash,
dollars."

"How's that, now?"

"Well, I wrote a little piece about your field, and the wind in the
grass, and the hedges along the fences, and the weeds among the timothy,
and the fragrance of it all in June and sold it last week----" I leaned
over toward Horace and whispered behind my hand--in just the way he
tells me the price he gets for his pigs.

"What!" he exclaimed.

Horace had long known that I was "a kind of literary feller," but his
face was now a study in astonishment.

"_What?_"

Horace scratched his head, as he is accustomed to do when puzzled, with
one finger just under the rim of his hat.