"There is something in it you don’t want me to see; isn’t that it?" Jess asked.
"Mebbe there is. Anyway, I don’t want to be blown to bits. Whoa, there, Jerry. What’s the matter with ye? Take the reins, Jess, an’ hold that hoss. He’s jist dyin’ fer an explosion. I kin tell it by the way he twists his ears."
As soon as Abner had hoisted the trunk up into the express, he climbed over the wheel, took his seat by his daughter’s side, seized the reins, and headed Jerry for home.
"You didn’t take the truck back," Jess reminded him as soon as they had started.
"Well, neither I did! But, never mind, Sam’ll git it. He might as well be doin’ somethin’, the lazy rascal. It’s his bizness to wait on the public, an’ we’re as much the public as anybody. G’long, Jerry."
"My, I’m glad to be back," and Jess gave a deep sigh of contentment. "I never saw the fields look so pretty, nor the trees such a wonderful variety of green. I missed all that at the Seminary. That beautiful maple over there in front of Mr. Sanders’ house seems to have grown since I went away."
"H’m," Abner grunted, "Joe should cut that down; it hides the view."
"Oh, daddy, don’t say that. Just think what such a tree means. There is so much in it."
"Y’bet there is; more’n a cord of good firewood."
"I don’t mean that, daddy. I wasn’t thinking of the wood, but of the beauty of form and color on golden, summer days, and the mystic music when the wind is rushing through its branches."
"Oh, it’s them things ye’r thinkin’ of. Well, mebbe ye’r right. But a piece of good dry maple in our old stove on a cold day in winter gives all the poetry an’ music I want. Guess ye’ve been studyin’ sich things at the Seminary, eh?"
"For a time we did. But this last term most of us were greatly interested in Social Service studies."
"Ye don’t tell! What’s that, anyway? A new kind of religion or prayer-meetin’, eh?"
"Oh, no," and Jess laughed merrily. "It is merely social reform, that is, efforts to lessen and remove existing evils."
"Well, that’s interestin’. Pretty big problem, I should say; almost as hard as clearin’ a dog’s hide of fleas."
"Much harder, daddy. You see, we have to deal with human nature at its lowest, and elevate it step by step."
"Oh, now I begin to spy daylight. Ye’r to be a kind of human elevator, sich as they have in big stores, which boosts ye from cellar to garret quicker’n ye kin say ’jack-rabbit.’"