going and whirring their harvest song. Nobody could have
felt more contented than I did. There were two clusters
of buildings--substantial buildings--set far back from
the road, one east, the other one west, both clusters
huddled homelike and sheltered in bluffs of planted
cottonwoods, straight rows of them, three, four trees
deep. My horse kept trotting leisurely along, the wheels
kept turning, a meadow lark called in a desultory way
from a nearby fence post. I was "on the go." I had torn
up my roots, as it were, I felt detached and free; and
if both these prosperous looking farms had been my
property--I believe, that moment a "Thank-you" would have
bought them from me if parting from them had been the
price of the liberty to proceed. But, of course, neither
one of them ever could have been my property, for neither
by temperament nor by profession had I ever been given
to the accumulation of the wealth of this world.

A mile or so farther on there stood another group of farm
buildings--this one close to the road. An unpainted barn,
a long and low, rather ramshackle structure with sagging
slidedoors that could no longer be closed, stood in the
rear of the farm yard. The dwelling in front of it was
a tall, boxlike two-story house, well painted in a rather
loud green with white door and window frames. The door
in front, one window beside it, two windows above,
geometrically correct, and stiff and cold. The house was
the only green thing around, however. Not a tree, not a
shrub, not even a kitchen garden that I could see. I
looked the place over critically, while I drove by.