hook his head. He heard the deep chug-chug of a motor vibrating
steadily in the clear twilight behind them. The pale lights of the car
swam over the hill, and the old man slapped his reins and turned clear
out of the road, ducking his head at the first of three angry snorts
from behind. The motor was running at a hot, even speed, and passed
without turning an inch from its course. The driver was a stalwart woman
who sat at ease in the front seat and drove her car bareheaded. She left
a cloud of dust and a trail of gasoline behind her. Her tenant threw
back his head and sneezed.

"Whew! I sometimes say I'd as lief be _before_ Mrs. Ericson as behind
her. She does beat all! Nearly seventy, and never lets another soul
touch that car. Puts it into commission herself every morning, and keeps
it tuned up by the hitch-bar all day. I never stop work for a drink
o' water that I don't hear her a-churnin' up the road. I reckon her
darter-in-laws never sets down easy nowadays. Never know when she'll pop
in. Mis' Otto, she says to me: 'We're so afraid that thing'll blow up
and do Ma some injury yet, she's so turrible venturesome.' Says I: 'I
wouldn't stew, Mis' Otto; the old lady'll drive that car to the funeral
of every darter-in-law she's got.' That was after the old woman had
jumped a turrible bad culvert."

The stranger heard vaguely what the old man was saying. Just now he was
experiencing something very much like homesickness, and he was wondering
what had brought it about. The mention of a name or two, perhaps;
the rattle of a wagon along a dusty road; the rank, resinous smell of
sunflowers and ironweed, which the night damp brought up from the draws
and low places; perhaps, more than all, the dancing lights of the motor
that had plunged by. He squared his shoulders with a comfortable sense
of strength.

The wagon, as it jolted westward, climbed a pretty steady up-grade. The
country, receding from the rough river valley, swelled more and more
gently, as if it had been smoothed out by the wind. On one of the last
of the rugged ridges, at the end of a branch road, stood a grim square
house with a tin roof and double porches. Behind the house stretched a
row of broken, wind-racked poplars, and down the hill slope to the left
straggled the sheds and stables. The old man stopped his horses where
the Ericsons' road branched across a dry sand creek that wound about the
foot of the hill.

"That's the old lady's place. Want I shoul