398 
journey, the writer fell into chance con- 
versation with one of these earnest workers 
of the new faith, a tall, gaunt individual, 
with something of the West in accent and 
garb still clinging to him, but with the New 
England conscience glinting from his eyes 
and the determination of the pioneer set in 
the contour of his resolute jaw. 
“T went West, to Kansas, in ’76, a young 
man,” he said reflectively, “‘in the days of 
coyotes, prairie dogs and pronghorns. Of 
course, ‘wheat’ was the game I played, and 
I played it hard—did well at it, too—and I 
suppose I’d be at it yet if I hadn’t kept 
some photographs of the old home tacked 
up in the bedroom. ‘Those pictures got up 
with;me in the morning, they tagged me 
around all‘day, and there was hardly a 
night I didn’t take a squint at ’em before 
I crawled into bed. I stood it for twenty- 
five years and then I gave it up. Got a man 
to take care of the farm and came East. 
RECREATION 
I’ve sold my place in the West.” Here he 
paused and his brow wrinkled a bit. I 
could see his mind was back on the Kansas 
prairie and his years of labor in the wheat 
fields, but, as he began again, his face 
lighted with keen enthusiasm and his force- 
ful words came rapidly. ‘‘I’ve never been 
sorry I came back,” he went on, “and Iam 
back to stay. I hadn’t been in the old town 
a week before I said to myself, ‘I reckon 
New Hampshire needs you more than the 
West does, my son, and here you stay.’ It 
was the look of the old place that did it, I 
think. It was in the hands of a foreigner 
when I first went out to look at it, and 
somehow it angered me to see the way he’d 
abused the place where my dad had lahored 
early and late for more than fifty years for 
mother and us children. I was just about 
twenty-four hours in getting the deed of the 
old farm into my name and it’s going to stay 
there. Children? Yes, a couple—two sons 

THE MECHANICAL GENIUS OF THE HAMLET 
This man and his brother and their father for seventy-five years have made the finest of clock movements—those 
installed by a famous Boston concern in large public buildings all over this country 
