armer clucked an applause of his own
wisdom. They had reached a corner where a large white house stood
surrounded by blooming cherry trees. Bees hummed, and the air was heavy
with sweetness. The stranger took off his hat, and straightening up
breathed long. "Delicious," he said. The farmer turned to the right,
into another road. "I'm almost glad I'm alive," said the stranger.

"You must have paid your taxes and got it over with," the farmer
replied. The stranger did not rejoin. His mind and his eye had gone
forth to roam in a piece of woods gently sloping toward the road. He saw
the mandrake's low canopy, shading the sod, the crimson flash of a
woodpecker through the blue of the air beneath the green of the trees,
like a spurt of blood. The farmer's eye, cloyed with the feasts that
nature spreads, followed a horse that galloped through the rank tangle
of a marsh-dip in a meadow.

"Over on that other hill is where the old lady lives," he said.

"What did you say her name was?"

"Well, her name _was_ first one thing then another, but it's Stuvic now.
She's been married several times--a Dutchman the last time, a
good-hearted fellow that used to work for her first husband--a good
talker in his way, smokin' all the time, and coughin' occasionally fit
to kill himself. He liked to read, but he had to keep his books hid in
the barn, for the old lady hates print worse than she does a snake. He'd
wait till she was off the place, and then he'd go out and dig up his
learnin'. But the minute he heard her comin'--and he could hear her a
mile--he'd cover up his knowledge again. One day he told her he was
goin' to die, and she might have believed him, but he had lied to her a
good deal, so she hooted at him; but a few days afterwards he convinced
her, and when she found he had told the truth, she jumped into a black
dress and cried. Strangest creature that ever lived, I guess; and if you
want to come to good terms with her tell her you can't read. She gets on
a rampage once in a while, and then she owns the road. I saw her
horse-whip a hired man. He had let a horse run away with him. She took
the horse, hitched him to a buggy, jumped in, laid on the whip, and
drove him at a gallop till he was only too glad to behave himself. Well,
you can get out here."

The stranger got down in front of a white "frame" house near the road.
The farmer waved him a good-bye and drove on. From a young orchard
behind the house there came the laughter