Then in the morning we'll lie snug in our
blankets and look up through the pines at an eagle. How'd it strike you?
Heh? Eagle soaring and soaring all day--big wide sky----"
"Don't! Or I will go with you, and I'm afraid there might be some slight
scandal. Perhaps some day I'll do it. Good-by."
Her hand disappeared in his blackened leather glove. From the turn in
the road she waved at him. She walked on more soberly now, and she was
lonely.
But the wheat and grass were sleek velvet under the sunset; the prairie
clouds were tawny gold; and she swung happily into Main Street.
II
Through the first days of June she drove with Kennicott on his calls.
She identified him with the virile land; she admired him as she saw with
what respect the farmers obeyed him. She was out in the early chill,
after a hasty cup of coffee, reaching open country as the fresh sun came
up in that unspoiled world. Meadow larks called from the tops of thin
split fence-posts. The wild roses smelled clean.
As they returned in late afternoon the low sun was a solemnity of radial
bands, like a heavenly fan of beaten gold; the limitless circle of the
grain was a green sea rimmed with fog, and the willow wind-breaks were
palmy isles.
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