CONTENTS PAGE Prelude. The Village Cemetery .... 1 PART ONE. The Trail of the Waster A. What I Learned from Henry Jor dan s Neighbors B. What I Learned from Mrs. Ormond formerly Hester Dane ... 9 C. What I Learned from Judge Weyburne 20 PART Two. The Builder Behind the Waster D. What I Learned from Professor Mil- ner 37 E. What I Learned from Marshall Jor dan 48 F. Nunc Dimittis BeingWhat I Found Among Henry Jordan s Papers and What Dreams I Dreamed over Them 66 5 JORDAN FARMS AN EPIC IN HOMESPUN PRELUDE THE VILLAGE CEMETERY Let him who loves a stern and rural tale, Told simply of stern, simple lives, give ear, Crouched on the grass of this old burial-ground, Where many an hour the butterflies and I Watched day unheeded glide to evening. Here Meet past and present each memorial stone Links dead and living, makes us heirs of time s Great human treasure trove. A voice around Goes up as out of Dante s world of dead, Old love and hate and noble deeds unknown. In these two graves lie kinsmen, dust by dust. One woman loved them both, one rood of ground Shall hold their bones till time forget its count Yet Congo s heat and Greenland s frozen world Were not more sundered than their lives and souls. And I, who never saw them, hearing long In sad rehearsal tales that haunt the tomb, Mused near their graves in twilight s mellowing beam, Or drowsy noontide, till my thoughts communed With them, or what they were. Then, curious grown,