f by the
side of the bungalow. They smote the poppy field beneath my windows,
spread out fan-shaped six wide, picking with both hands, and ripped a
swath of destruction through the very heart of the field. No cyclone
travelled faster or destroyed more completely. I shouted after them, but
they sped on the wings of the wind, great regal poppies, broken-stalked
and mangled, trailing after them or cluttering their wake--the most
high-handed act of piracy, I am confident, ever committed off the high
seas.

One day I went a-fishing, and on that day a woman entered the field.
Appeals and remonstrances from the porch having no effect upon her, Bess
despatched a little girl to beg of her to pick no more poppies. The
woman calmly went on picking. Then Bess herself went down through the
heat of the day. But the woman went on picking, and while she picked she
discussed property and proprietary rights, denying Bess's sovereignty
until deeds and documents should be produced in proof thereof. And all
the time she went on picking, never once overlooking her hand. She was a
large woman, belligerent of aspect, and Bess was only a woman and not
prone to fisticuffs. So the invader picked until she could pick no more,
said "Good-day," and sailed majestically away.

"People have really grown worse in the last several years, I think," said
Bess to me in a tired sort of voice that night, as we sat in the library
after dinner.

Next day I was inclined to agree with her. "There's a woman and a little
girl heading straight for the poppies," said May, a maid about the
bungalow. I went out on the porch and waited their advent. They plunged
through the pine trees and into the fields, and as the roots of the first
poppies were pulled I called to them. They were about a hundred feet
away. The woman and the little girl turned to the sound of my voice and
looked at me. "Please do not pick the poppies," I pleaded. They
pondered this for a minute; then the woman said something in an undertone
to the little girl, and both backs jack-knifed as the slaughter
recommenced. I shouted, but they had become suddenly deaf. I screamed,
and so fiercely that the little girl wavered dubiously. And while the
woman went on picking I could hear her in low tones heartening the little
girl.

I recollected a siren whistle with which I was wont to summon Johnny, the
son of my sister. It was a fearsome thing, of a kind to wake the dead,
and I blew and