Kennicott?"
"Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk."
"Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches
high. Well, so long."
She hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her.
This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether
by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and
commercial lords of the town.
Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook,
she discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of
pegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels,
holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was
Miles Bjornstam.
"Well, well, what you doing out here?" he roared. "Come have a hunk o'
bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!"
A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon.
"Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl
in and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all
summer."
The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the
wire fence, held the strands apart for her.
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