another soul touch that car. Puts it into commission herself
every morning, and keeps it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I
never stop work for a drink o' water that I don't hear her a-
churnin' up the road. I reckon her darter-in-laws never sets
down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop in. Mis' Otto,
she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up and do Ma
some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I
wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the
funeral of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old
woman had jumped a turrible bad culvert."

The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying.
Just now he was experiencing something very much like
homesickness, and he was wondering what had brought it about.
The mention of a name or two, perhaps; the rattle of a wagon
along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of sunflowers and
ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws and low
places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor
that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable
sense of strength.

The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady
up-grade. The country, receding from the rough river valley,
swelled more and more gently, as if it had been smoothed out by
the wind. On one of the last of the rugged ridges, at the end of
a branch road, stood a grim square house with a tin roof and
double porches. Behind the house stretched a row of broken,
wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left
straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses
where the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that