THE next morning was one of those days that sometimes come in the summer, when the most desirable thing to do is to sleep. The air was soft and damp, and sleep inviting, and when something awoke me at six o’clock, I drowsily looked at my watch and dreamily realized that I was not compelled to catch any train, but could sink into delightful unconsciousness once more.

Just what had waked me I did not know, but before I went off again I heard the voice of James out doors, and then I heard the voice of Minerva, evidently at her open window, saying:

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

And then I dropped off, to be awakened again in what seemed like a moment by these beautiful words:
“Oh, de debbil he t’ought he had me fas’.
Le’ my people go.
But I t’ought I’d break his chains at las’,
Le’ my people go.
Go down Moses, way down in Egypt la-an’,
Tell ol’ Phar’o’ fo’ to le’ my people go.”

It was melodious, it was harmonious, but it was also six o’clock in the morning.

“Oh, won’t they stop,” said Ethel, sleepily.

“Not by my command,” said I. “They are practising for the concert.”

“Oh, I’m so sleepy! What time is it?”
“Oh, ’twas a dark an’ stormy night,
Le’ my people go;
When Moses an’ the Israelite,
Le’ my people go.”

“Make them go,” said Ethel, her eyes wide open, but her mouth passing from the words to a yawn.

“And it’s such a beautiful morning to sleep,” said I.

But as verse after verse rolled out sonorously, sleep fled from the room in dismay, and we followed, and for the first time since we had come to the country, found ourselves as one might say, up before breakfast. The morning air was delightful, but we knew the danger that lurks in morning air on empty stomachs—or we thought we knew it. If there is no danger in such exposures I make my humble apology to those who hold the contrary opinion. Personally I do not know what is right to do—that is, hygienically right to do, at any given moment.

May I be forgiven for digressing at this point, in order that I may touch on a topic that has been near my heart for a long time, but has never had a chance for utterance before. I was brought up to believe that water with meals was a very bad thing, so I went without water at meals, and thrived like a green bay tree.

One day a doctor told me that water with meals was the one thing needed to bring out the tonic properties of food.

I immediately began to drink water with my meals in perfect trust and confidence, and—I continued to thrive like a green bay tree.

When I was a boy, I was told that tomatoes were exceedingly bad; that they had no nutritive qualities, and that it was but a few short years since they had been called “love apples” and had rightly been considered poisonous.

With unquestioning faith I refrained from eating the juicy vegetables and remained free from all the diseases that follow in their train. I had not tasted a tomato, and I did not know what I was losing.

One day when feeling a little off my feed, a young doctor friend said, “What you need is the acid of a tomato.”

With an unfaltering trust I approached a tomato and ate it and realized the many, many years that were irrevocably gone; years in which I might have eaten the succulent fruit—for a tomato is a fruit; there’s no question of it.

After that day I made a point of eating tomatoes whenever I could and I remained free from the diseases that had been said to follow in their train.

I blindly follow the dictum of the last doctor who speaks and it is to that fact that I attribute my good health.

I read somewhere not long since that the best way to keep free from colds was to sit in draughts as much as possible and I believe there is a good deal of sound sense back of that dictum, but Ethel will not let me try the virtue of the thing.

No doctor has told me that it is right to take long walks on an early morning empty stomach and so I have not done it, but I have an English friend who used to walk twenty miles or so to breakfast. The English are always walking twenty miles to somewhere, and look at them. A fine race!

The Americans are not much given to walking, but look at them—a fine race!

Everything is certainly for the best—always, everywhere.

We walked around to the kitchen and found Minerva on her knees before the fire watching insufficient kindling feebly burn while James sat on the kitchen table swinging one long leg and teaching her a rag-time melody.

He rose to his feet as we came in and gave us a hearty good morning and then burst into a good-natured laugh that showed all his beautiful white teeth.

“Made an early start, sir.”

“Yes, James. It isn’t absolutely necessary for rehearsals to begin quite so early,” said I. “It woke us up.”

“There, now, Minerva, what did I tell you? I was sure they’d hear it.”

“No question about your filling the church.”

“’Deed I’m awful sorry,” said Minerva, “Wakin’ you so early, an’ the fire not kindled.”

“Well, never mind. We’ll drink some milk and then we’ll go for a little walk, but I think that to-morrow perhaps the rehearsals needn’t begin until after breakfast. There’ll be a long morning before you and you can rehearse in the morning and take the nature study in the afternoon.”

“Yas’r,” said Minerva, a shade of reluctance in her tone which I attributed to the mention of nature study. Minerva evidently wanted life to be one grand sweet song.

All that morning snatches of melody floated over the landscape in the which landscape we were idly lolling under the trees reading, and I think that household duties were neglected, but that James was not averse to work was shown by the fact that he carried great armfuls of kindling wood into the kitchen.

When Ethel went out there just before lunch she found the west window banked up to the second sash with kindling wood.

Ethel likes to have the whole house in ship shape order, and this unsightly pile of wood in the kitchen went against the grain. There was enough there to last a week and meantime the kitchen was robbed of that much daylight.

James sat on the door-sill idly whittling a piece of kindling and Minerva, temporarily songless, was getting lunch ready.

“Oh, James,” said Ethel after a rapid survey of the situation, “I wish if you haven’t anything else to do that you would pile that kindling wood out in the woodshed.”

She told me he burst into his hearty laugh, and, rising with alacrity, he said:

“Certainly, Mrs. Vernon,” and for the next half hour he was busily employed in undoing what he had done in the half hour before.

“Oh, it will be easy to find employment for him along those lines,” said I when she told me. “We’ll just make him do things and undo them and that laugh of his will keep Minerva sweet natured and he’ll earn his wages over and over again.”

“Well, it seems sort of wicked to make a human being do unnecessary things just for the sake of making him undo them again,” said my mistress of economics.

“In cases like that the end justifies the means.”

After lunch that day Ethel interrogated Minerv............