He trundled the bumping wheelbarrow and whistled. The red sun, enormous in the slight haze, was gashing itself cruelly on a black pine tree. The hylas, by now, had burst into full shrill-sweet chorus in the swamp, and of the birds all but a few scraping grackles were still. “Peace--peace--peace,” sang the hylas, a thousand at once. Silver bells, frailer than thimbles, ringing under a still and infinite sea of ether.... “Peace--peace,” he murmured. Then he dropped the wheelbarrow in horror, and put his hands to his ears. “The enemy!” he cried. “Martha! hurry! Martha!” This time Martha seemed to be out of earshot, so he was obliged to circumvent the enemy with great caution. The enemy was a toad who sat by preference near the toolhouse door: obese, sage, and wrinkled like a Chinese god. “Toad that under cold stone.” Marvelous compulsion of rhythm.... He thrust the wheelbarrow into the cool pleasant-smelling darkness of the toolhouse, and walked towards the kitchen door, which just at that moment Hilda opened. “Hurry up,” she said. Her voice had a delicious mildness in the still air and added curiously to his already overwhelming sense of luxury. He had, for a moment, an extraordinarily satisfying sense of space. III He lifted his eyes from the pudding to the Hokusai print over the mantel. “Think of it with shame! We sit here again grossly feeding our insatiable bellies, while Fujiyama, there, thrusts his copper-colored cone into a cobalt sky among whipped-cream clouds! Pilgrims, in the dusk, toil up his sides with staves. Pilgrims like ants. They struggle upwards in the darkness for pure love of beauty.” “I don’t like bread-pudding,” ejaculated Mary solemnly, “it’s beany.” Martha and Marjorie joined in a silvery cascade of giggles. “Where _did_ she get that awful word!” said Hilda. “Tom says it, mother.” “Well, for goodness’ sake forget it.” Mary stared gravely about the table, spoon in mouth, and then, removing the spoon, repeated, “It’s beany.” He groaned, folding his napkin. “What an awful affliction a family is. Why did we marry, Hilda? Life is a trap.” “Mrs. Ferguson called this afternoon and presented me with a basket of green strawberries. I’m afraid she thought I wasn’t very appreciative. I hate to be interrupted when I’m sewing. Why under the sun does she pick them before they’re ripe?” “That’s a nice way to treat a neighbor who gives you a present!... You _are_ an ungrateful creature.” Hilda was languid. “Well, I didn’t ask her for them.” Her eyes gleamed with a slow provocative amusement. “They’re beany,” said Mary. He rolled his eyes at Mary. “Our kids are too much with us. Bib and spoon, Feeding and spanking, we lay waste our powers!”