ground, as though to stay there indefinitely talking.
“No. I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve never been there yet, not explored much of the world at all.”
“Oh, I understood you had become a regular Yankee by this time. I was wondering whether we’d ever have you back with us at all or not. That’s how it turns out, you know, when they get away once.”
“On the contrary, this place has scarcely been out of my mind. Naturally, when one’s been raised. … Do you find it changed at all since your return?”
“Well, no, can’t say I do. Of course, they grow more tobacco than they ever did. That began in the War, of course. Then there were a couple of years there they had to give away what they had. Over-production, I guess, or some warfare between the companies. That was just about the time I got back, and it looked kind of silly to me. But some way I got around to thinking it may be all right to put a few acres in. I see the other fellows doing it, anyway. Of course, I got enough of putting all my eggs in the one basket out West. When there’s rust, frost, or anything, hail, you just naturally lose your year’s work.”
The lank, brown, musing face was wrinkled. Richard saw a spear or two of white in his yellow temples. The man was changed and unchanged. The West, its gambling hazards, even a roving life had seemed more fitting to him than hispresent situation. He had been the dare-devil hail-fellow to innumerable scrapes in his youth in this circumscribed place. But then, he had met a woman, acquired a wife, the Waterloo of that character.
It was a fate, Richard Milne thought he saw, which had completely humanized the harum-scarum; or, if not completely, so well that he was now to be counted upon for half-conscious, humorous understanding: in effect, since a descent to the practical was inevitable, for support. Having seen the world and touched the commonplace of romance, he would rightly estimate the commonplace, and see its quartz-glitter in the dust of his hands.
No, he would not be suspecting these things in himself, and that would make half his value in a self-conscious world such as Richard Milne had come to know. A true man, which is something different from a nice fellow, his tough, lean body, his brown, lean face told something about him; he was as old now as he had looked ten years ago, as he would be in ten years’ time. For his hearer the remarkable thing, so frequently invoked in print, was that here was a gentleman who had never read a book.
Meanwhile he, too, was stirred by the meeting, while the talk went on of crops. Only when such matters had been dealt with very thoroughly was it that Richard, about to leave, spoke again of the family.
“Yes, you’ve got to see the wife and our boys and girls while you’re here. We’re a regular tribe now. When I look at you, only a couple of years, ain’t it, younger, it seems hard to believe.”
“Well, we’ve both been away a long time. Time enough to have acquired a wife, you know.” His tone was somewhat grim, though he tried to veil it with a smile.
“Well,” declared the other in his turn, “my luck changed just as soon as we got married. And now, with a family, I’ve got to keep pegging away, so it doesn’t seem to have a chance to change.” He laughed.
“That’s good. Why, here they come now!”
A sound echoing from the trees at the end of the field made them turn. A boy and a girl were running toward them, halfway across, while two little boys were climbing the fence. As they ran barefoot over the soft, even, warm ground, with cries back and forward to each other, light-hearted, breathless, light-footed, Richard Milne stood transfixed for a second, permeated with a sense of his own childhood. Intently looking at the stranger, and their father, expecting who knew what cryptic spoken index of the mysterious world of which they guessed only that it was wonderful, they came forward.
“Well, you’re puffing, Bill.” The
“No. I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve never been there yet, not explored much of the world at all.”
“Oh, I understood you had become a regular Yankee by this time. I was wondering whether we’d ever have you back with us at all or not. That’s how it turns out, you know, when they get away once.”
“On the contrary, this place has scarcely been out of my mind. Naturally, when one’s been raised. … Do you find it changed at all since your return?”
“Well, no, can’t say I do. Of course, they grow more tobacco than they ever did. That began in the War, of course. Then there were a couple of years there they had to give away what they had. Over-production, I guess, or some warfare between the companies. That was just about the time I got back, and it looked kind of silly to me. But some way I got around to thinking it may be all right to put a few acres in. I see the other fellows doing it, anyway. Of course, I got enough of putting all my eggs in the one basket out West. When there’s rust, frost, or anything, hail, you just naturally lose your year’s work.”
The lank, brown, musing face was wrinkled. Richard saw a spear or two of white in his yellow temples. The man was changed and unchanged. The West, its gambling hazards, even a roving life had seemed more fitting to him than hispresent situation. He had been the dare-devil hail-fellow to innumerable scrapes in his youth in this circumscribed place. But then, he had met a woman, acquired a wife, the Waterloo of that character.
It was a fate, Richard Milne thought he saw, which had completely humanized the harum-scarum; or, if not completely, so well that he was now to be counted upon for half-conscious, humorous understanding: in effect, since a descent to the practical was inevitable, for support. Having seen the world and touched the commonplace of romance, he would rightly estimate the commonplace, and see its quartz-glitter in the dust of his hands.
No, he would not be suspecting these things in himself, and that would make half his value in a self-conscious world such as Richard Milne had come to know. A true man, which is something different from a nice fellow, his tough, lean body, his brown, lean face told something about him; he was as old now as he had looked ten years ago, as he would be in ten years’ time. For his hearer the remarkable thing, so frequently invoked in print, was that here was a gentleman who had never read a book.
Meanwhile he, too, was stirred by the meeting, while the talk went on of crops. Only when such matters had been dealt with very thoroughly was it that Richard, about to leave, spoke again of the family.
“Yes, you’ve got to see the wife and our boys and girls while you’re here. We’re a regular tribe now. When I look at you, only a couple of years, ain’t it, younger, it seems hard to believe.”
“Well, we’ve both been away a long time. Time enough to have acquired a wife, you know.” His tone was somewhat grim, though he tried to veil it with a smile.
“Well,” declared the other in his turn, “my luck changed just as soon as we got married. And now, with a family, I’ve got to keep pegging away, so it doesn’t seem to have a chance to change.” He laughed.
“That’s good. Why, here they come now!”
A sound echoing from the trees at the end of the field made them turn. A boy and a girl were running toward them, halfway across, while two little boys were climbing the fence. As they ran barefoot over the soft, even, warm ground, with cries back and forward to each other, light-hearted, breathless, light-footed, Richard Milne stood transfixed for a second, permeated with a sense of his own childhood. Intently looking at the stranger, and their father, expecting who knew what cryptic spoken index of the mysterious world of which they guessed only that it was wonderful, they came forward.
“Well, you’re puffing, Bill.” The
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