At night sometimes, when one had gone upstairs and had got into bed, one thought of the cellar and of the farm woman and the farm men. Outside the house it was dark and a wind was blowing. Soon there would be winter and snow and skating. The farm woman with the strange, strong-looking hands had driven the gray horse off along the street on which the Webster house stood, and around a corner. One had stood at a window down stairs and had watched her out of sight. She had gone off into some mysterious place, spoken of as the country. How big was the country and how far away was it? Had she got there yet? It was night now and very dark. The wind was blowing. Was she still driving the gray horse on and on, the reins held in her strong brown hands? The boy had got into bed and had pulled the covers up about him. His mother came into the room and after kissing him went away taking his lamp. He was safe in the house. Near him, in another room, his father and mother slept. Only the country woman, with the strong hands, was now out there alone in the night. She was driving the gray horse on and on into the darkness, into the strange place from which came all the good, rich-smelling things, now stored away in the cellar under the house. IV “Well, hello you, Mr. Webster. This is a fine place for you to be day-dreaming. I’ve been standing here and looking at you for several minutes and you haven’t even seen me.” John Webster jumped to his feet. The afternoon was passing and already there was a kind of grayness falling over the trees and the grass in the little park. The late afternoon sun was shining on the figure of the man who stood before him and, although the man was short of stature and slight, his shadow on the stone walk was grotesquely long. The man was evidently amused at the thought of the prosperous manufacturer day-dreaming there in the park and laughed softly, his body swaying a little back and forth. The shadow also swayed. It was like a thing hung on a pendulum, swinging back and forth, and even as John Webster sprang to his feet a sentence went through his mind. “He takes life with a long slow easy swing. How does that happen? He takes life with a long slow easy swing,” his mind said. It seemed like a fragment of a thought snatched out of nowhere, a fragmentary dancing little thought.