were singing lazily above the empty beer glasses.

Clara shook her head weakly. "No, it wouldn't do. Besides,
I am going now."

"I'm on Eric's mare. Would you be angry if I overtook you?"

Clara looked back and laughed. "You might try and see. I can
leave you if I don't want you. Eric's mare can't keep up with
Norman."

Nils went into the bar and attempted to pay his score. Big
Joe, six feet four, with curly yellow hair and mustache, clapped
him on the shoulder. "Not a Goddamn a your money go in my drawer,
you hear? Only next time you bring your flute, te-te-te-te-te-ty."
Joe wagged his fingers in imitation of the flute player's position.

"My Clara, she come all-a-time Sundays an' play for me. She not
like to play at Ericson's place." He shook his yellow curls and
laughed. "Not a Goddamn a fun at Ericson's. You come a Sunday.
You like-a fun. No forget de flute." Joe talked very rapidly and
always tumbled over his English. He seldom spoke it to his
customers, and had never learned much.

Nils swung himself into the saddle and trotted to the west of
the village, where the houses and gardens scattered into prairie
land and the road turned south. Far ahead of him, in the declining
light, he saw Clara Vavrika's slender figure, loitering on
horseback. He touched his mare with the whip, and shot along the
white, level road, under the reddening sky. When he overtook