How it all came back to him! How many days, when
Up The Coulee
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the autumn sun burned the frost off the bushes, had he gathered
hazelnuts here with his boy and girl friends-Hugh and Shelley
McTurg, Rome Sawyer, Orrin McIlvaine, and the rest! What had
become of them all? How he had forgotten them!
This thought stopped him again, and he fell into a deep muse,
leaning against an oak tree and gazing into the vast fleckless space
above. The thrilling, inscrutable mystery of life fell upon him like
a blinding light. Why was he living in the crush and thunder and
mental unrest of a great city, while his companions, seemingly his
equal, in powers, were milking cows, making butter, and growing
corn and wheat in the silence and drear monotony of the farm?
His boyish sweethearts! Their names came back to his ear now
with a dull, sweet sound as of faint bells. He saw their faces, their
pink sunbonnets tipped back upon their necks, their brown ankles
flying with the swift action of the scurrying partridge. His eyes
softened; he took off his hat. The sound of the wind and the leaves
moved him almost to tears.
A woodpecker gave a shrill, high-keyed, sustained cry, "Ki, ki, ki!"
and he started from his reverie, the dapples of sun and shade
falling upon his lithe figure as he hurried on down the path.
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