repeated.

"It'll work," said the farmer. "Right _now_, it'll work. Yes, we've got
milkers and shuckers, and we've got hatchers for the chickens. We've got
tractors and combines and threshing machines. They're all mechanical,
all right. But we don't have mechanical farmers, yet. The pumps, the
tractors, the milkers don't work by themselves. In time, maybe. Not now.
We're still ahead of them on that. It'll work."

"Go out to the fields, Henry," his wife said, her voice like the sound
of a worn phonograph record.

"No," the farmer said, taking a pipe from his overalls. "I think
instead, I'll just sit in the sun and watch the corn. Watch the birds on
top of the barn, maybe. I'll fill my pipe and sit there and smoke and
watch. And when I get sleepy, I'll sleep. After a while I might go see
August Brown or Clyde Briggs or maybe Alfred Swanson. We'll sit and
talk, about pleasant things, peaceful things. We'll wait."

The farmer put the pipe between his teeth and walked to the door. He put
on his straw hat, buttoned the sleeves of his blue shirt and stepped
outside.

His wife sat at the table, staring at nothing in the room.

The farmer walked across the barnyard, listening to the sound of the
chickens and the sound of the breeze going through the corn. Near the
barn, he sat upon an old tree stump and filled his pipe with tobacco. He
lit the pipe, cupping his hands, and sat there, smoking, the smoke
spiraling up into the bright warm air.

He took his pipe from his teeth and looked at it. "Pipe of peace," he
said, laughing inside himself.

The breeze was soft and the sun warm on his back. He sat there, smoking,
feeling the quiet of the morning, the peace of the great sky above.

He had no time to stand or to take his pipe from his mouth, when the two
men crossed the yard and lifted him up by the arms. He dropped the pipe,
while he was dragged past the house, to the road beyond. He had no time
to yell or scream, before his hat was swept from his head, the overalls
and the blue shirt stripped from his body.

He had not even thought about what it was that had happened, before he
was thrust inside a white truck, with strong steel sides and with
grilled windows like those of a cell.

He was just sitting there, in the truck, without his clothes, speeding
away with August Brown and Clyde Briggs and Alfred Swanson.

* * * * *

Outside, the sun was warm upon the earth. Chickens clucked in th