. They'd cleared that whole
area of timber and brush because it was a good, flat land. Only they
hadn't, because that was virgin forest, too.

Maybe he'd gone insane? He felt a flood of relief. Sure, that was it.
He'd just gone insane, that was all. Everything else was all right.

"The calves have got loose to the cows and they're going to take all the
milk, Jed."

He turned around and looked at Martha. If he was crazy, so was she. Her
eyes showed it. Her words showed it, at a time like this to be worrying
about them fool calves getting out. It took all the comfort away from
him. Her face was white, her eyes were dazed.

"You got some dirt on your cheek, Martha," he heard himself saying. "And
for Pete's sake, woman, put on some clothes. The committee's coming
over, and you running around like that!"

He thought he had the solution then. He'd fallen asleep in the hammock
after all, while he was waiting for the committee, and he was dreaming.
Of course, he ought to have known all along. This was just the way
things happened in a dream--even him and Martha running around naked. He
even chuckled to himself. He must be a pretty moral kind of fellow after
all, because even in a dream it was his own wife that was next to him
there, naked--not some other man's.

The fool things a man can dream! Might as well make the most of it. He
took her into his arms, and she clung to him.

Must have got the sheet tangled around his throat to choke him, and he
was dreaming it was her arms. But there hadn't been any sheet in the
hammock when he went to sleep.

And he wasn't dreaming.

"What's happened, Jed?" she whispered. Even her whisper was shaking with
fear, and her arms were wound around his neck so tight now he could
hardly breathe.

"Now, now, Martha," he cautioned. "Don't you go getting hysterical."

"What has happened?" she asked again.

"I don't know," he said. They were both talking in low tones.

"It's some kind of a miracle," she whispered.

"Now there's a woman's thinking for you," he chided her fondly, joshing
her a little. "Nothing of the sort. It's just plain ... Well any
scientist would tell you that ..." And then he stopped. He was pretty
sure the frameworks of science, as he knew them, wouldn't be able to
tell you.

He guessed that while they stood there clinging to one another, they
both went a little nuts. It was sort of like drowning, he guessed. You'd
have the feeling of sinking down and down, and t