"Never mind. I have here a nice beautiful new cow, the best milker
in California."

"When did you write it?" she demanded eagerly. Then,
reproachfully, "And you never showed it to me."

"I saved it to read to you on the way to the post-office, in a spot
remarkably like this one," he answered, indicating, with a wave of
his hand, a dry log on which to sit.

A tiny stream flowed out of a dense fern-brake, slipped down a
mossy-lipped stone, and ran across the path at their feet. From
the valley arose the mellow song of meadow-larks, while about them,
in and out, through sunshine and shadow, fluttered great yellow
butterflies.

Up from below came another sound that broke in upon Walt reading
softly from his manuscript. It was a crunching of heavy feet,
punctuated now and again by the clattering of a displaced stone.
As Walt finished and looked to his wife for approval, a man came
into view around the turn of the trail. He was bare-headed and
sweaty. With a handkerchief in one hand he mopped his face, while
in the other hand he carried a new hat and a wilted starched collar
which he had removed from his neck. He was a well-built man, and
his muscles seemed on the point of bursting out of the painfully
new and ready-made black clothes he wore.

"Warm day," Walt greeted him. Walt believed in country democracy,
and never missed an opportunity to practise it.