[Illustration with caption: THE OLD HOMESTEAD] Of all the places on
which his gaze rested, this mill and pond held the most treasured
recollections. It was in this pond ten years ago his father had taught
him to swim. Here, too, the neighboring farmers brought their sheep
each spring to be washed--always a holiday and frolic for the boys.

Like many other farms in this section of Western Pennsylvania, the
buildings were set so that the barn stood between the house and the
main road, making the approach to the house past the barn and through
the barnyard. For the first time, this awkward arrangement was
apparent to him; he wondered why the buildings had been thus located,
and facing northwest.

He replaced his cap, swung his suitcase over the fence, jumped down to
the frozen ground and set off down the hill. As he trudged along,
picking his way over the rough ground, the parting words of his father
came to him: "Make yourself useful, Bob, and your Uncle Joe, I'm sure,
will pay you all you're worth, and while I'd rather have you become a
merchant, still if you find you like the farm, you may stay with your
Uncle Joe." It was not so much the prospect of making money as the
chance of being in the open air among the things that he loved that
caused him to whistle a lively tune as he crossed the fields toward
the house.

The one over which he was now passing, he observed, had been planted
in winter wheat, and that just beyond, at the edge of the meadow, was
the young orchard well grown and badly in need of pruning. The route
he had taken soon brought him out into the lane at the foot of the
hill, near the cider mill, where he stopped to drink of the cool sap
that flowed into a large tin pail, from one of the sugar-maple trees