face dimpled with a seizure of irrelevant merri-
ment, and he shot up the windmill tower with
a lightness that struck me as disdainful. I
knew he was peering down at me as I walked
toward the house.

Ducks and geese ran quacking across my
path. White cats were sunning themselves
among yellow pumpkins on the porch steps.
I looked through the wire screen into a big,
light kitchen with a white floor. I saw a long
table, rows of wooden chairs against the wall,
and a shining range in one corner. Two girls
were washing dishes at the sink, laughing and
chattering, and a little one, in a short pina-
fore, sat on a stool playing with a rag baby.
When I asked for their mother, one of the
girls dropped her towel, ran across the floor
with noiseless bare feet, and disappeared.
The older one, who wore shoes and stock-
ings, came to the door to admit me. She was
a buxom girl with dark hair and eyes, calm
and self-possessed.

"Won't you come in? Mother will be here
in a minute."

Before I could sit down in the chair she
offered me, the miracle happened; one of
those quiet moments that clutch the heart,

[[373]]

p372 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p373w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p374

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