They convinced me that some of the great things I had expected of my pilgrimage were realizable possibilities.

Why, I had walked right into the heart of as fine a family as I have seen these many days.
I remained with them the entire day following the potato-planting.

We were out at five o'clock in the morning, and after helping with the chores, and eating a prodigious breakfast, we went again to the potato-field, and part of the time I helped plant a few remaining rows, and part of the time I drove a team attached to a wing-plow to cover the planting of the previous day.
In the afternoon a slashing spring rain set in, and Mr.Stanley, who was a forehanded worker, found a job for all of us in the barn.

Ben, the younger son, and I sharpened mower-blades and a scythe or so, Ben turning the grindstone and I holding the blades and telling him stories into the bargain.

Mr.Stanley and his stout older son overhauled the work-harness and tinkered the corn-planter.