re the heavy thresher and the traction engine had driven deep
into the soil. He saw, too, the last little scales of chaff, still
palely golden, that had lain hidden till this frolicsome wind had come
to whirl them up in one last mad dance before it lost them for ever. For
it was a morning of clear and windy brightness, one of those first days
of autumn which are also a last flicker of the summer.

The wind was everywhere--high in the flocculent clouds, low between the
closest grass-blades; scattering the seeded flowers in the hedgerows,
rippling under the tarpaulin covers of the stacks so that they seemed to
be drawing deep breaths, twisting the golden straws upon the cobbled
yard until they seemed to be playing together--playing mad games of
wrestling, each slim golden combatant writhing from beneath his fellow
at the last moment of contact. The wind lifted also the collar of Jim's
tunic, making it flap about his rosy cheeks, and it sent streaming out
the black silk tie that his mother had knotted there herself.

Jim put up his hand to make sure the black tie was still safe. He was
sorry that his grandfather was what people called dead, but with his
sorrow went a tiny thrill. Nothing so important had ever happened to
Jimmy before. He wondered if he would be put into black altogether so
that the other children he met would know he was in mourning.

He swayed back and forth upon the gate. First he pretended he was a
soldier riding on horseback like his father had been in South
Africa-on-the-map. Next he was a sailor in a storm at sea, and the wind
was shaking his good ship under him, and the waves were mounting, high,
high, as they often had over the ship of old Uncle Archelaus, whom he
had met long ago.

Thought of the sea and sight of the tiny ripples on the surface of the
horse-trough suggested a new game to him. He had been told to run away
out of doors and not bother, so it was very quietly that he crept into
the empty breakfast-room, which was also his playroom, and began to
search in his toy chest for something he could pretend was a ship. With
a cry of joy he pounced upon a walnut shell that lay tucked away in a
corner. He sat upon his heels, the shell in his little brown hand. He
was remembering that it was one his grandfather had cracked for him and
made into a boat by the addition of matches for seats and mast. He loved
it until his uncle Archelaus had made him a real boat of wood, and then
he had thrown it