We used to linger a long while over our
coffee in that sunny corner. Lena was never
so pretty as in the morning; she wakened
fresh with the world every day, and her eyes
had a deeper color then, like the blue flowers
that are never so blue as when they first open.
I could sit idle all through a Sunday morning
and look at her. Ole Benson's behavior was
now no mystery to me.

"There was never any harm in Ole," she
said once. "People needn't have troubled
themselves. He just liked to come over and
sit on the draw-side and forget about his bad
luck. I liked to have him. Any company's
welcome when you're off with cattle all the
time."

"But wasn't he always glum?" I asked.
"People said he never talked at all."

"Sure he talked, in Norwegian. He'd been
a sailor on an English boat and had seen
lots of queer places. He had wonderful tat-
toos. We used to sit and look at them for
hours; there wasn't much to look at out there.
He was like a picture book. He had a ship
and a strawberry girl on one arm, and on
the other a girl standing before a little house,
with a fence and gate and all, waiting for

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