head and even his shoulders were bent--almost habitually--from looking
close upon the earth, and from time to time he stooped, and once he
knelt to examine some object that attracted his eye. It seemed
appropriate that he should thus kneel to the earth. So he gathered _his_
crop and fences did not keep him out nor titles disturb him. He also was
free! It gave me at that moment a peculiar pleasure to have him on my
land, to know that I was, if unconsciously, raising other crops than I
knew. I felt friendship for this old professor: I could understand him,
I thought. And I said aloud but in a low tone, as though I were
addressing him:

--Do not apologise, friend, when you come into my field. You do not
interrupt me. What you have come for is of more importance at this
moment than corn. Who is it that says I must plow so many furrows this
day? Come in, friend, and sit here on these clods: we will sweeten the
evening with fine words. We will invest our time not in corn, or in
cash, but in life.--

I walked with confidence down the hill toward the professor. So
engrossed was he with his employment that he did not see me until I was
within a few paces of him. When he looked up at me it was as though his
eyes returned from some far journey. I felt at first out of focus,
unplaced, and only gradually coming into view. In his hand he held a
lump of earth containing a thrifty young plant of the purple
cone-flower, having several blossoms. He worked at the lump deftly,
delicately, so that the earth, pinched, powdered and shaken out, fell
between his fingers, leaving the knotty yellow roots in his hand. I
marked how firm, slow, brown, the old man was, how little obtrusive in
my field. One foot rested in a furrow, the other was set among the grass
of the margin, near the fence--his place, I thought.