nic prejudice against
alcohol, and he hated it less for the harm it did than for the
pleasure it gave. Claude consistently refused to take any part in
the activities of the Anti-Saloon League, or to distribute what
Bayliss and Enid called "our literature."

In the farming towns the term "literature" was applied only to a
special kind of printed matter; there was Prohibition literature,
Sex-Hygiene literature, and, during a scourge of cattle disease,
there was Hoof-and-Mouth literature. This special application of
the word didn't bother Claude, but his mother, being an
old-fashioned school-teacher, complained about it.

Enid did not understand her husband's indifference to a burning
question, and could only attribute it to the influence of Ernest
Havel. She sometimes asked Claude to go with her to one of her
committee meetings. If it was a Sunday, he said he was tired and
wanted to read the paper. If it was a week-day, he had something
to do at the barn, or meant to clear out the timber claim. He
did, indeed, saw off a few dead limbs, and cut down a tree the
lightning had blasted. Further than that he wouldn't have let
anybody clear the timber lot; he would have died defending it.

The timber claim was his refuge. In the open, grassy spots, shut
in by the bushy walls of yellowing ash trees, he felt unmarried
and free; free to smoke as much as he liked, and to read and
dream. Some of his dreams would have frozen his young wife's
blood with horror--and some would have melted his mother's heart
with pity. To lie in the hot sun and look up at the stainless
blue of the autumn sky, to hear the dry rustle of the leaves as
they fell, and the sound of the bold squirrels leaping from
branch to branch; to lie thus and let his imagination play with
life--that was the best he could do. His thoughts, he told
himself, were his own. He was no longer a boy. He went off into
the timber claim to meet a young man more experienced and
interesting than himself, who had not tied himself up with
compromises.

IV

From her upstairs window Mrs. Wheeler could see Claude moving
back and forth in the west field, drilling wheat. She felt lonely
for him. He didn't come home as often as he might. She had begun
to wonder whether he was one of those people who are always
discontented; but whatever his disappointments were, he kept them
locked in his own breast. One had to learn the lessons of life.
Nevertheless, it made her a little sad to s