of him. He smiled whimsically at the contrast between them and their
habits of living.

"Much obliged," he said. "I expect to be some busy, but maybe I'll
drop in and bed down with yuh; once I hit town, it's hard to tell what
I may do."

"I hope you'll feel perfectly free to come at any time and make
yourself at home," Mr. Dill urged lonesomely.

"Sure. There's the old burg--I do plumb enjoy seeing the sun making
gold on a lot uh town windows, like that over there. It sure looks
good, when you've been living by your high lonesome and not seeing any
window shine but your own little six-by-eight. Huh?"

"I--I must admit I like better to see the sunset turn my own windows
to gold," observed Mr. Dill softly. "I haven't any, now; I sold the
old farm when mother died. I was born and raised there. The woods
pasture was west of the house, and every evening when I drove up the
cows, and the sun was setting, the kitchen windows--"

Alexander P. Dill stopped very abruptly, and Billy, stealing a glance
at his face, turned his own quickly away and gazed studiously at a
bald hilltop off to the left. So finely tuned was his sympathy that
for one fleeting moment he saw a homely, hilly farm in Michigan, with
rail fences and a squat old house with wide porch and hard-beaten path
from the kitchen door to the well and on to the stables; and down a
long slope that was topped with great old trees, Alexander P.
Dill shambling contentedly, driving with a crooked stick three
mild-mannered old cows. "The blamed chump--what did he go and pull