"Six years you have decided for me, and right----every time! We are of the woods, Bel, born and reared here as our fathers before us.

What would we of the camp fire, the long trail, the earthy search, we harvesters of herbs the famous chemists require, what would we do in a city?
And when the sap is rising, the bass splashing, and the wild geese honking in the night! We never could endure it, Bel.
"When we delivered that hemlock at the hospital to-day, did you hear that young doctor talking about his 'lid'?
Well up there is ours, old fellow! Just sky and clouds overhead for us, forest wind in our faces, wild perfume in our nostrils, muck on our feet, that's the life for us.
Our blood was tainted to begin with, and we've lived here so long it is now a passion in our hearts.

If ever you sentence us to life in the city, you'll finish both of us, that's what you'll do! But you won't, will you?
You realize what God made us for and what He made for us, don't you, Bel ?" As he lovingly patted the dog's head the man talked and the animal trembled with delight.

Then the voice of the Harvester changed and dropped to tones of gravest import.
"Now how about that other matter, Bel?
You always decide that too.

The time has come again.