"Very well. Run along now and find your uncle. He'll be with Humphrey in the thirty-acre - I think they're getting it ready for potatoes. You must decide the best way to ask him, but I shouldn't say too much about the number of people coming, but concentrate upon getting permission to use the barn... Come along... I think we had better lock up again..."

As she hurried down the cart-track Peter was so excited that she gave little thought to the problem before her.

"It's going to be all right after all," she said to herself as she passed the field she had rolled with Henry before breakfast, and realized that from somewhere ahead was coming a very remarkable noise. First she heard a deep throbbing which she supposed to be a tractor, but this was accompanied by a mournful dirge that could hardly be a human voice. She turned up by the hedge and came to an open gate through which she could see a brown field. On her right it was newly furrowed into the big, deep ridges which, she knew, were ready now to take the potato "seed". Even as she watched, the noise increased as a big red tractor roared over the brow of the hill.

This in itself was an impressive sight, but Peter gasped when she saw her Uncle Micah, with black beard fluttering in the wind, perched on the driving seat. His mouth was open and the frightening accompaniment was Uncle singing hymns! She had never imagined that Uncle Micah would take such a practical part in the running of the farm, and she was even more surprised when he stopped the tractor and glared at her with a very odd expression on his face. "He's baring his teeth at me," Peter thought, and then almost laughed in relief as she realized that this odd grimace was a smile.

"You have sought me out and found me, then, my child?" he rumbled. "What would you have with me?"

Now, as she faced Uncle Micah seated above her on the throbbing tractor, her mind went blank and words failed her. The old man stared at her silently for a moment and then consulted an enormous silver watch.

"You are a good and dutiful daughter to your father, Petronella?"

As this was in the form of a question, Peter gulped and said she tried to be, and this appeared to be the correct answer.

"In ten minutes we will converse again. Tarry here till I return," was the next comment as the tractor roared into life and turned.

So Peter stayed while the tractor disappeared four times over the hill and Uncle Micah changed to a hymn about Jordan. Then he dismounted, put a gnarled hand on her shoulder and led her along the path by the hedge. "You must try not to be lonely here, my child."