laces made him connect the
idea of love-making with this girl and a spot he had
visited some days before. He had gone on an errand to
the house of a farmer who lived on a hillside beyond
the Fair Ground and had returned by a path through a
field. At the foot of the hill below the farmer's house
Seth had stopped beneath a sycamore tree and looked
about him. A soft humming noise had greeted his ears.
For a moment he had thought the tree must be the home
of a swarm of bees.

And then, looking down, Seth had seen the bees
everywhere all about him in the long grass. He stood in
a mass of weeds that grew waist-high in the field that
ran away from the hillside. The weeds were abloom with
tiny purple blossoms and gave forth an overpowering
fragrance. Upon the weeds the bees were gathered in
armies, singing as they worked.

Seth imagined himself lying on a summer evening, buried
deep among the weeds beneath the tree. Beside him, in
the scene built in his fancy, lay Helen White, her hand
lying in his hand. A peculiar reluctance kept him from
kissing her lips, but he felt he might have done that
if he wished. Instead, he lay perfectly still, looking
at her and listening to the army of bees that sang the
sustained masterful song of labor above his head.

On the bench in the garden Seth stirred uneasily.
Releasing the hand of the girl, he thrust his hands
into his trouser pockets. A desire to impress the mind
of his companion with the importance of the resolution
he had made came over him and he nodded his head toward
the house. "Mother'll make a fuss, I suppose," he
whispered. "She hasn't thought at all about what I'm
going to do in life. She thinks I'm going to stay on
here forever just being a boy."

Seth's voice became charged with boyish earnestness.
"You see, I've got to strike out. I've got to get to
work. It's what I'm good for."

Helen White was impressed. She nodded her head and a
feeling of admiration swept over her. "This is as it
should be," she thought. "This boy is not a boy at all,
but a strong, purposeful man." Certain vague desires
that had been invading her body were swept away and she
sat up very straight on the bench. The thunder
continued to rumble and flashes of heat lightning lit
up the eastern sky. The garden that had been so
mysterious and vast, a place that with Seth beside her
might have become the background for strange and
wonderful adventures, now seemed no more than an
ordinary Winesbu