He was filled
somehow with a strange and powerful feeling of the passage of
time; with a vague feeling of the mystery and elusiveness of
human life. The leaves whispered it overhead, the birds sang it in
chorus with the insects, and far above, in the measureless spaces of
sky, the hawk told it in the silence and majesty of his flight from
cloud to cloud.
It was a feeling hardly to be expressed in word~ one of those
emotions whose springs lie far back in the brain. He lay so still, the
chipmunks came curiously up to
A Branch Road
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his very feet, only to scurry away when he stirred like a sleeper in
pain.
He had cut himself off entirely from the life at The Corners. He
had sent money home to John, but had concealed his own address
carefully. The enormity of this folly now came back to him,
racking him till he groaned.
He heard the patter of feet and the half-mumbled monologue of a
running child. He roused up and faced a small boy, who started
back in terror like a wild fawn. He was deeply surprised to find a
man there where only boys and squirrels now came. He stuck his
fist in his eye, and was backing away when Will spoke.
"Hold on, sonny! Nobody's hit you.
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