d
at."

"You--you used to work there?"

"Six years."

"I--I ain't scared no more, Eddie; honest, I ain't!"

"Gee! I should say not! They ain't even sending you up to the farm."

"No, no! They're going to get me a job. A regular outdoor, on-the-level
kind of a job. A grand old doc, with whiskers! I ain't a regular one,
Eddie; just the bottom of one lung don't make a regular one."

"Well, I guess not, poor little missy. Well, I guess not."

"Three months, he said, Eddie. Three months of right living like this,
and air and all, and I'll be as round as a peach, he said. Said it
hisself, without me asking--that's how scared I was. Round as a peach!"

"You can't beat that gang over there at the clinic, little missy. They
took me out of the department when all the spring-water I knew about ran
out of a keg. Even when they got me out on the farm--a grown-up guy like
me--for a week I thought the crow in the rooster was a sidewalk faker.
You can't beat that, little missy."

"He's a grand old man, with whiskers, that's going to get me the job.
Then in three months I--"

"Three months nothing! That gang won't let you slip back after the three
months. They took a extra shine to me because I did the prize-pupil
stunt; but they won't let anybody slip back if they give 'em half a
chance. When they got me sound again, did they ship me back to the
shipping department in the subbasement? Not muchy! Looka me now, little
missy! Clerk in their biggest display; in three months a raise to
ninety dollars. Can you beat it? Ninety dollars would send all the
shipping-clerks of the world off in a faint."

"Gee! it--it's swell!"

"And--"

"Look! Look!"

"Persimmons!" A golden mound of them lay at the base of a tree, piled up
against the hole, bursting, brown. "Persimmons! Here; taste one. They're
fine."

"Eat 'em?"

"Sure!"

She bit into one gently; then with appetite. "M-m-m! Good!"

"Want another?"

"M-m-m--my mouth! Ouch! My m-mouth!"

"Gee! you cute little thing, you! See, my mouth's the same way, too.
Feels like a knot. Gee! you cute little thing, you--all puckered up and
all."

And linking her arm in his they crunch-crunched over the brittle leaves
and up a hillside to a plateau of rock overlooking the flaming country;
and from the valley below smoke from burning mounds of leaves wound in
spirals, its pungency drifting to them.

"See that tree there? It's a oak. Look; from a little acorn like this it
grew. See,