and pull out, but it's like rooting up one of the old oaks in the meadow lot.
The fact is, Tom, I've been fooled into one of the worst scrapes I've got into
yet."

"I see how it is," said Tom heartily and complacently, "you want a practical,
foresighted man to talk straight at you for an hour or two and clear up the
fog you're in. You study and brood over little things out there alone until
they seem mountains which you can't get over nohow, when, if you'd take one
good jump out, they'd be behind you. Now, you've got to stay and take a bite
with me, and then we'll light our pipes and untangle this snarl. No backing
out! I can do you more good than all the preachin' you ever heard. Hey,
there, Bill!" shouting to one of the paupers who was detailed for such work,
"take this team to the barn and feed 'em. Come in, come in, old feller!
You'll find that Tom Watterly allus has a snack and a good word for an old
crony."

Holcroft was easily persuaded, for he felt the need of cheer, and he looked up
to Tom as a very sagacious, practical man. So he said, "Perhaps you can see
farther into a millstone than I can, and if you can show me a way out of my
difficulties you'll be a friend sure enough."

"Why, of course I can. Your difficulties are all here and here," touching his
bullet head and the region of his heart. "There aint no great difficulties in
fact, but, after you've brooded out there a week or two alone, you think
you're caught as fast as if you were in a bear trap. Here, Angy," addressing
his wife, "I've coaxed Holcroft to take supper with us. You can hurry it up a
little, can't you?"

Mrs. Watterly gave their guest a cold, limp hand and a rather frigid welcome.
But this did not disconcert him. "It's only her way," he had always thought.