spry about it.  Andrew'll be home by half-past twelve and if
I'm going to give him the slip I'd better get a start.  I
suppose he'll think I'm crazy!  He'll follow me, I guess.
Well, he just shan't catch me, that's all!"  A kind of anger
came over me to think that I'd been living on that farm for
nearly fifteen years--yes, sir, ever since I was
twenty-five--and hardly ever been away except for that trip to
Boston once a year to go shopping with cousin Edie.  I'm a
home-keeping soul, I guess, and I love my kitchen and my
preserve cupboard and my linen closet as well as grandmother
ever did, but something in that blue October air and that
crazy little red-bearded man just tickled me.

"Look here, Mr. Parnassus," I said, "I guess I'm a fat old
fool but I just believe I'll do that.  You hitch up your horse
and van and I'll go pack some clothes and write you a check.
It'll do Andrew all the good in the world to have me skip.
I'll get a chance to read a few books, too.  It'll be as good
as going to college!"  And I untied my apron and ran for the
house.  The little man stood leaning against a corner of the
van as if he were stupefied.  I dare say he was.

I ran into the house through the front door, and it struck me
as comical to see a copy of one of Andrew's magazines lying on
the living-room table with "The Revolt of Womanhood" printed
across it in red letters.  "Here goes for the revolt of Helen
McGill," I thought.  I sat down at Andrew's desk, pushed aside
a pad of notes he had been jotting down about "the magic of
autumn," and scrawled a few lines:

DEAR ANDREW,

Don't be thinking I'm crazy.  I've gone off for an adventure.
It just came over me that you've had all the adventures while
I've been at home baking bread.  Mrs. McNally will look after
your meals and one of her girls can come over to do the
housework.  So don't worry.  I'm going off for a little
while--a month, maybe--to see some of this happiness and
hayseed of yours.  It's what the magazines call the revolt of
womanhood.  Warm underwear in the cedar chest in the spare
room when you need it.
                                             With love,
                                                   HELEN.

I left the note on his desk.

Mrs. McNally was bending over the tubs in the laundry.  I
could see only the broad arch of her back and hear the vigorous
zzzzzzz of her rubbing.  She straightened up at my call.

"Mrs. McNally," I said, "I'm going away for a little trip.
You'd better let the washing go until this afternoon and get
Andrew's dinner for him.  He'll be back about twelve-thirty.
It's half-past ten now.  You tell him I've gone over to see
Mrs. Collins at Locust Farm."

Mrs. McNally is a brawny, slow-witted Swede.  "All right Mis'
McGill," she said.  "You be back to denner?"

"No, I'm not coming back for a month," I said.  "I'm going
away for a trip.  I want you to send Rosie over here every day
to do the housework while I'm away.  You can arrange with Mr.
McGill about that.  I've got to hurry now."

Mrs. McNally's honest eyes, as blue as Copenhagen china,
gazing through the window in perplexity, fell upon the
travelling Parnassus and Mr. Mifflin backing Pegasus into the
shafts.  I saw her make a valiant effort to comprehend the
sign painted on the side of the van--and give it up.

"You going driving?" she said blankly.

"Yes," I said, and fled upstairs.

I always keep my bank book in an old Huyler box in the top
drawer of my bureau.  I don't save very quickly, I'm afraid.
I have a little income from some money father left me, but
Andrew takes care of that.  Andrew pays all the farm expenses,
but the housekeeping accounts fall to me.  I make a fairish
amount of pin money on my poultry and some of my preserves
that I send to Boston, and on some recipes of mine that I send
to a woman's magazine now and then; but generally my savings
don't amount to much over $10 a month.  In the last five
years I had put by something more than $600.  I had been
saving up for a Ford.  But just now it looked to me as if that
Parnassus would be more fun than a Ford ever could be.  Four
hundred dollars was a lot of money, but I thought of what it
would mean to have Andrew come home and buy it.  Why, he'd be
away until Thanksgiving!  Whereas if I bought it I could take
it away, have my adventure, and sell it somewhere so that
Andrew never need see it.  I hardened my heart and determined
to give the Sage of Redfield some of his own medicine.

My balance at the Redfield National Bank was $615.20.  I sat
down at the table in my bedroom where I keep my accounts and
wrote out a check to Roger Mifflin for $400.  I put in plenty
of curlicues after the figures so that no one could raise the
check into $400,000; then I got out my old rattan suit case
and put in some clothes.  The whole business didn't take me
ten minutes.  I came downstairs to find Mrs. McNally looking