120 FARM SPIES 



boys listened closely to all the questions and also 

 to the answers by the speakers. 



"I am so glad to see that Mr. Jim Blakeley is 

 here ; I did not think that he would come/' said 

 Mr. Sprague when the meeting was over. 



"He and I were chatting down there in the grove 

 a little while ago. I never saw any man so inter- 

 ested. I asked him how he liked the meeting, and 

 he said that it was fine and that he had learned a 

 number of good things. He seemed to feel satisfied 

 that his old stump-field needed cleaning up, because 

 he was sure, from what was said at the meeting, 

 that it must offer the best kind of shelter for the 

 bugs to pass the winter." 



About two weeks after the meeting Mr. Blakeley 

 called at the home of Mr. Sprague. Will Brown, 

 Walter Carey, and Fred Conner happened to call 

 at the same time to spend the evening. 



When a few neighbors meet like this to spend a 

 pleasant evening, you know that generally every 

 kind of subject is discussed, but this evening the 

 talk drifted to chinch-bugs, and Will Brown said 

 afterwards that he had never before believed that 

 one could spend so pleasantly an evening talking 

 about bugs. It was Mr. Blakeley who started it, 

 and, in fact, he had come on purpose to talk to Mr. 

 Sprague about this matter. 



Mr. Blakeley said, "The last two weeks I have 



