88 The Illumination of Joseph Keeler, Esq. 



party took long walks to see the breakers roll in on the beach 

 with its hummocks of ice piled high on the shore; while again 

 sleigh bells lent then- pleasant music to the evening drive in the 

 bob-sleighs. 



It seemed proper, too, that Fanny should do something for 

 her country friends, so a concert was arranged in the church at 

 which the city performers gave selections and mingled in pleas- 

 ant conversation with their farmer acquaintances. After a final 

 "party," to which some of the more immediate neighbors were 

 invited to meet the visitors, the latter regretfully bade their 

 adieus and John and Fanny resumed their quiet life, Miss Morri- 

 son only remaining with them. She had, during these passing 

 days, observed with pleasure the active interest John took in 

 every part of the Farm, and was surprised, indeed astonished, 

 at the strong grasp shown of all its practical details. Instead of 

 the nervous and irritable lawyer she had known, she now beheld 

 a strong, calm man, seriously engaged in the business of life with 

 an evident purpose of doing his utmost to carry out his respon- 

 sible task successfully. She found that instead of performing 

 a perfunctory duty, John Keeler was eager to learn everything 

 of farming operations, and she noticed that his reading was espe- 

 cially of works on the practice and economics of agriculture. 

 His conversation turned upon some of the problems, which his 

 father and the professor had been so long engaged upon, and 

 John pointed out to Miss Morrison how backward agriculture 

 had become, compared with that in some European countries, 

 where through his reading he had found scientific methods of pro- 

 duction, distribution and selling fully developed. He spoke of 

 the low land values, which were the measure of the small average 

 crops in this splendid climate, and said that to reconstruct agri- 

 culture in the district was a work worthy of the highest kind of 

 intellect and training. He, too, pointed out the loss to the dis- 

 trict through so many young men leaving the farms for the city, 

 and felt sure that the absence of the old-time spirit and energy, 

 which had marked the district sixty years ago, was primarily 

 due to a failure of the rural population to keep pace with the 

 application of modern scientific methods as in other fields of 

 human energy, and that this must be fairly attributable to the 

 lack of means and opportunity for obtaining exact knowledge 



