indicated by these hectic green spots.

"Wal, the Lord calls most of us to stay at home and look after things, such
weather as this. Good plantin' weather; good weather for breakin' ground;
fust-rate weather for millin'! This is a reg'lar miller's rain, Uncle
Tommy. You'd ought to be takin' advantage of it. I've got a grist back
here; wish ye could manage to let me have it when I come back from store."

The grist was ground and delivered before Friend Barton went in to his
supper that night. Dorothy Barton had been mixing bread, and was wiping her
white arms and hands on the roller towel by the kitchen door, as her father
stamped and scraped his feet on the stones outside.

"There! I do believe I forgot to toll neighbor Jordan's rye," he said, as
he gave a final rub on the broom Dorothy handed out to him. "It's wonderful
how careless I get!"

"Well, father, I don't suppose thee'd ever forget, and toll a grist twice!"

"I believe I've been mostly preserved from mistakes of that kind," said
Friend Barton gently. "Well, well! To be sure," he continued musingly. "It
may be the Lord who stays my hand from gathering profit unto myself while
his lambs go unfed."

Dorothy put her hands on her father's shoulders: she was almost as tall as
he, and could look into his patient, troubled eyes.

"Father, I know what thee is thinking of, but do think long. It will be a
hard year; the boys ought to go to school; and mother is so feeble!"