It was a dry, cool place, under blue-green layers of maple boughs. There were lumps and hollows in the turf, and the grass was fat and long. The branches plashed gently as a faintly piping bird pushed through them. Two or three small leaves blew down and stirred in the woman’s hair. The grass protruded gently against her face; every breath renewed the fresh smell of it. Far away clicked a hay-gathering machine, in the olive, billowy, upland fields—thick timothy starred with goldenrod. Her eyes closed on the white road, curving down hill between cushiony meadows, but from an infinite drowsy distance she heard a tin pail swing with a creak, and dimly fancied the glare on it. * * * * * At noon, Abel finished the patch, dropped his pitchfork, and tramped up across the lumpy ground. His blue shirt was hot and damp, pricked through by the dazzle. He could almost see the tan thicken on his hands. The swing of walking and walking towards home and towards dinner was keen pleasure. He liked to lift his great boots and stamp down the dry, puffy sod. Inside the kitchen door there was a sleepy and motionless air; nothing hummed on the stove but the multitudinous flies about the boiler. Cups and saucers gleamed whitely through the glass pantry door. “Clara!” “Clara!” Twice Abel’s voice cut the monotone, but it closed in again like deep water. He burst through the hall and swung back the front door. In the flood of daylight his eyes caught the red and white stripes of her skirt, low among fringes of grass under the maple. His heart jumped in a great fright. There seemed to be insects in his blood that buzzed. His pulses dinned and pounded. The skin was drawn tight to bursting round his neck. He stopped still, than ran and jumped the piazza railing with a smothered shout. He stumbled across the lawn, hindered by his tense veins as by strings. His body seemed to have swollen in a sort of anger. She lay there on the hall rug. One hand stirred in the sleek grass as an eager little ant crept over it. Abel’s breath came easier. He sat down by her on the sod. She had become so valuable that he could not bear to touch her or speak to her, but he reached up and lightly shook the branches. An insect was flung down in confusion, a mass of kicking black legs. She looked up with surprised eyes at the broad blue chest and the bared arm just letting go the bough. Abel leaned over and flicked a caterpillar from her sleeve. Her hand shrank away, and he took hold of it, drawing her sidewise until she sat up. “I thought you—well, I had a good scare!” said Abel. “It was dreadful hot,” she said stupidly, “and I was so tired I couldn’t—oh, you haven’t had no dinner, and you got to go over to Sidney’s! oh my, what time is it? I forgot. I don’t know how I forgot. I just let it go. Oh, what possessed me? well, I was so hot and tired, I just couldn’t”—— “There! I don’t care a snap!”