I should never have found the garden--except, perhaps, for
the big yellow pumpkins that lay about unprotected by their withering
vines--and I felt very little interest in it when I got there. I wanted
to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the
world, which could not be very far away. The light air about me told me
that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left,
and if one went a little farther there would be only sun and sky, and
one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over
our heads making slow shadows on the grass. While grandmother took the
pitchfork we found standing in one of the rows and dug potatoes, while I
picked them up out of the soft brown earth and put them into the bag, I
kept looking up at the hawks that were doing what I might so easily do.

When grandmother was ready to go, I said I would like to stay up there
in the garden awhile.

She peered down at me from under her sunbonnet. 'Aren't you afraid of
snakes?'

'A little,' I admitted, 'but I'd like to stay, anyhow.'

'Well, if you see one, don't have anything to do with him. The big
yellow and brown ones won't hurt you; they're bull-snakes and help to
keep the gophers down. Don't be scared if you see anything look out of
that hole in the bank over there. That's a badger hole. He's about as
big as a big 'possum, and his face is striped, black and white. He takes
a chicken once in a while, but I won't let the men harm him. In a new
country a body feels friendly to the animals. I like to have him come
out and watch me when I'm at work.'

Grandmother swung the bag of potatoes over her shoulder and went down
the path, leaning forward a little. The road followed the windings
of the draw; when she came to the first bend, she waved at me and
disappeared. I was left alone with this new feeling of lightness and
content.

I sat down in the middle of the garden, where snakes could scarcely
approach unseen, and leaned my back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There
were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit.
I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries
and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I
had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The
gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered
draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing
its h