As I neared Susie's home I began, for the first time in my life, to suffer from palpitation. The shadow of a doubt floated in the autumn sun-light. I set my teeth together and resolved not to be faint hearted. I must go in boldly and plead my cause and win. When I reached the gate of the Adair farmhouse I had to look straight over the head of a very large, sanctimonious-faced bull-dog to get a view of the vine covered porch. This dog looked up at me and smiled ineffably; then he came to the gate and stood over against me, peeping between the slats. I hesitated. About this time Ben Crane came out of the house with a banjo in his hand. He had been playing for Susie. He was a natural musician. "'Feared o' the dog, Mr. Woodpecker?" said he. "Begone, Bull!" and he kicked the big-headed canine aside so that I could go in. I heard him thrumming on his banjo far down the road as Susie met me at the door. How wondrously beautiful she was! "Sit down Mr. ----, and, if you do not care, I'll bring the churn in and finish getting the butter while we talk." I was delighted--I was charmed--fascinated. Susie's father had gone to a distant village, and her mother, a gentle work-worn matron, was in the other room spinning flax, humming, meantime, snatches of camp meeting hymns. The sound of that spinning-wheel seemed to me strangely mournful and sad, but Susie's deep, clear gray eyes and cheerful voice were the very soul of joyousness, health and youth. She brought in a great fragrant cedar churn, made to hold six or eight gallons of cream, and forthwith began her labor. She stood as she worked, and the exercise throwing her entire body into gentle but well-defined motion, displayed all the riches of her contour. The sleeves of her calico gown were rolled up above the elbows, leaving her plump, muscular arms bare, and her skirt was pinned away from her really small feet and shapely ankles in such a way as to give one an idea, a suggestion, of supreme innocence and grace. Her long, crinkled gold hair was unbound, hanging far below her waist, and shining like silk. Her lips, carmine red, seemed to overflow with tender utterances. Ever since that day I have thought churning a kind of sacred, charmingly blessed work, which ought to be, if really it is not, the pastime of those delightful beings the ancients called deities. Cream is more fragrant, more delicious, more potent than nectar or ambrosia. A cedar churn is more delicately perfumed than any patera of the gods. And, I say it with reverence, I have seen, swaying lily-like above the churn, a beauty more perfect than that which bloomed full grown from the bright focus of the sea's ecstatic travail.