Jean turned her face to mine, and something in her eyes was deeper than the great clouds gathering overhead. "A year ago you would have said, 'Looks like rain,'" was her ample comment. * * * * * With springtime came ducks to the pond, and to our table. Jean had so far overcome her reluctance to killing that she would crawl with me for what seemed ages, worming along through the grass of the slopes on the northern side of the pond, for the chance of sharing with me that moment of ecstasy in which I killed a living thing. The ducks had been much shot at in their flight northward and were careful to avoid the ambush afforded by the grove on the southern side of the pond. Eventually Jean began taking out the gun on her own account, and it was a tremendously proud day when she brought home her first mallard. Usually we did our shooting in the evening, when the banks were in the shadow but there was still light on the water. The sharp whistle of duck wings would be followed by the flash of my gun and the glow of burnt wadding. . . . Then there was the walk home through the gleaming night. We had built a bridge of poles in the gully at the road between Fourteen and Twenty-two, as a stream a foot deep was now flowing across the path. One evening, just as I was unharnessing the oxen, Jean came rushing to me in great excitement. "Frank, there are fish in the creek! I saw them darting in every direction! What can we catch them with?" "Suckers, they'll be," said I, "but even a sucker is good in the spring." We hurried to the stable, where we got two hay forks. "You stand on guard on the bridge, and if any go through, jab 'em," I directed. "I'll go down stream and drive 'em up." It was not long until I detected half a dozen forms, almost black in the water, and resting in the most innocent stillness except for the constant dilation of mouth and gills. I jabbed at the nearest. But a fish in the water is not exactly where he seems to be, and I missed him. He and his company dashed at tremendous speed toward the bridge, with me in wild pursuit. After the first step or two I abandoned the bank and plunged into the stream, striking and jabbing recklessly. Suddenly I landed one--pierced through the tail, I must confess--and threw him far up the bank. "Oh, they're coming, they're coming! I see them!" Jean shouted. She teetered for a moment on the plank; then jumped--or fell--into the stream and was jabbing about, somewhat to the menace of my feet, and her own. Her skirts trailed wetly down the tide, and clung about her limbs. But she was thinking not a bit of that. In wild triumph she threw out a fish bigger than mine, and jabbed where a fish ought to be jabbed. * * * * * One evening Spoof came over, carrying his gun.