Mrs. Klein was shaking out a rug on the front porch. She smiled at him. "Not much to do here, for a city man, is there?" "I'm not bored," he said, "for some reason. You have a beautiful daughter, Mrs. Klein." "I'd feel happier about her looks if she'd marry somebody," Mrs. Klein said dryly. "Seems to me they're wasted this way." Doak sat on the glider. What was it someone had said about marriage? Oh, yes--that it combined the ultimate in temptation with the ultimate in opportunity. He said, "I'm surprised she isn't married. The men around here must be blind or mute." "Oh, she's had enough offers," Mrs. Klein answered. She laid the rug over the porch railing. "But she's a fussy stubborn girl." She sat in her chair. "You a married man, Mr. Parker?" He shook his head. "Never had the time nor the money--and besides they all said no to me." "I'll bet. With that hair of yours and that fine head, with those eyes, I'll _bet_ they said no." "Why, thank you!" Doak said. "You have a number of good points, yourself, Mrs. Klein." "My popovers and my coffee, maybe," she agreed. "And my figure wasn't bad, a decade or two back. But I never had Martha's looks. That's from her dad's side of the family." "Handsome, were they?" "Oh, yes. High falutin' people, scholars and beauties who owned half the land in the county, at one time. Old Wisconsin Germans. I'm Irish myself." Bright scintillating dialogue, stirring the quick response. But he felt as relaxed as though he had hay in his hair. He looked out at the deserted road, at the fields beyond, at the clouds on the clear horizon. Rural summer--a quiet Saturday morning in the agricultural Midwest only nineteen minutes from Chicago. People spoke of other worlds and here was one, nineteen minutes from Chicago. And last night, under the lucidate, the town banker had gone to another world, three hundred years away, had gone back to the magic of Burns. A great lad for the ladies, Bobbie Burns, and a great love for the people. A poet with revolutionary leanings, all heart, a bleeder and a believer. Studious, Doak sat, on the front porch in another world. Were the people so stupid they couldn't be trusted with words? They could be misled with words and confused and stirred to unrighteous anger. And informed with words and guided and ennobled and solaced and stirred to high destiny. How had wrestling ever taken the place of words? Someone said, "Dreaming, city-man?" He looked up quickly to see Martha standing there. Mrs. Klein had evidently gone into the house without his being aware of it. "Dreaming," Doak admitted. "Holding high converse with the mighty dead." He smiled at her. "Through for the week?" "Through." She took the chair her mother usually occupied. "Five and a half days of whereas and wherefore earns me a day and a half for myself. At the risk of seeming forward would you like to go swimming with me this afternoon?"