slightly raised his hat, but his instinct failed him there,--it was the
window of the boys' room.

"Queer kinks them old Friend preachers gits into their heads sometimes,"
said Farmer Jordan, as they passed the empty mill. "Now what do you s'pose
took Uncle Tommy Barton off right on top of plantin', leavin' his wife 'n'
critters 'n' child'en to look after themselves? Mighty good preachin' it
ought to be to make up for such practicin'. Wonderful set ag'in the war,
Uncle Tommy is. He's a-preachin' up peace now. But Lord! all the preachin'
sense Moses won't keep men from fightin' when their blood's up and there's
ter'tory in it."

"It makes saints of the women," said Evesham shortly.

"Wal, yes. Saints in heaven before their time, some of 'em. There's
Dorothy, now. She'll hoe her row with any saint in the kingdom or out of
it. I never see a hulsomer-lookin' gal. My Luke, he run the furrers in
her corn-patch last May. Said it made him sick to see a gal like that
a-staggerin' after a plough. She wouldn't more 'n half let him. She's a
proud little piece. They're all proud, Quakers is. I never could see no
'poorness of spirit,' come to git at 'em. And they're wonderful clannish,
too. My Luke, he'd a notion he'd like to run the hull concern, Dorothy 'n'
all; but I told him he might's well p'int off. Them Quaker gals don't never
marry out o' meetin'. Besides, the farm's too poor."

"Good-night, Mr. Jordan," said Evesham suddenly. "I'm off across lots." He
leaped the fence, crashed through the alder hedgerow, and disappeared in
the dusky meadow.

Evesham was by no means satisfied with his experiments in planetary