man feel proud knowing he had nothing to live down.
Humboldt was cradling a watermelon to take back. His time was old and
he was given to all sorts of quirks he would never have allowed himself
but even five years ago--like taking a taxi, selling part of his farm
or, worse yet, eating good weiners on any but festive occasions. Such
things, he had once remarked, were the very stuff of foolishness.

The taxi would only take him to the end of the long lane. Punctuated by
his mailbox and an old haying shed, the driveway was well over a mile
from the house. The road was all that remained of an old county line
that had since fallen into disuse. Provided considerable privacy, he
thought, well in tune to his love of isolation. Barring, of course,
those bi-weekly ventures into town. Yes, they were needed.

Pulling the latch over the door and stooping to rekindle the fire, many
would have thought such an existence unbearably dull. Not so, Humboldt.
Since his sister had died it was true he had sometimes felt the need
for companionship but this was a world of his own making. He felt the
thrill of self-accomplishment knowing it was his land. He was alone
with memories. Quietly rocking by the fire, he began to doze off,
little thinking materials like old magazines, old rags to start a fire
lay strewn about the floor. Basic cleanliness had been an early
casualty since the sister's death. Gone was the regimen of order and
weekly cleans until now the house was like a dusty candle box. Still,
his was an orderly world. Soft fashioned, it was free of the tatters
that change brings. He thought of the years, the steady labour in the
fields, the thriftiness, his distrust of banks, the big city--the new
highway that had compelled the sale of the "lower 40" and all the rest
of that blamed idiocy.

The fire was gentle and massaged the chill from his fingers. An old
man's fingers. Honest hands not creased with pleasure but with familiar
toil. He used to liken his life to that drive into town. Steady, small
pastimes where every bend was anticipated before rounding it like the
neat little farms all in rows. His warmth was in the security of the
knowable, he thought nodding off. He was thinking little thoughts like
strawberries in spring or what the icy water must have felt like
closing around the throat of Scot. If he had only lived like himself,
got into farming and enjoyed life instead of dashing off to lose touch
with reality. Yes, old ways we