"'Tis the seventeenth of April, so we may git ahead with plantin'," he remarked.
"Ah, well, it's a fine early spring an' puts me in mind of seventy years ago when I was courtin'.

Thar ain't many men, I reckon, that can enjoy lookin' back on a courtin' seventy years after it is over.

'Tis surprisin' how some things sweeten with age, an' memory is one of 'em." Reuben merely nodded after him as he went, for he had grown too tired to answer.

A curious stillness--half happiness, half indifference--was stealing over him, and he watched as in a dream, the blue figure of old Adam hobble over the sun-flecked path through the orchard.

A few minutes later Molly flitted after the elder, and Reuben's eyes followed her with the cheerful look with which he had faced seventy years of life.