r; I
believe you speak the truth. I don't know anything about art, but, so
far as I am concerned, it is a waste of time for any scholar to pick
flaws in a thing that makes me feel. He may tell me why it is bad taste
to feel, but he can't convince me that I haven't felt."

He said this looking at the girl, and their eyes warmed with the
communion. "I have studied art," she said, "until I do not know anything
about it; and I am beginning to believe if the world listens to--to a
talk about it, it is with a sneer. No one wants to know. No one is
willing to listen, except like this, out in the country when there is
nothing else to do."

"I find plenty to do," said Mrs. Stuvic, overhearing the remark and
turning from Blakemore, who had been "joshing" her about an old man.
"Yes, you bet. There's always a plenty to do in the country if a body's
a mind to do it. The country people ain't such fools. No, you bet. The
most of 'em's got sense enough to keep a horse from kickin' 'em. Yes,
walked right over in the woods and let a horse kick him. Why, old Lewson
would've knowed better than that, and he didn't have sense enough to
know that he couldn't come back. Now, Bill, you keep quiet. Don't you
say a word."

"If you were afraid the old fellow would come back, why didn't you marry
him?" said Blakemore.

"Now, you keep still, too. I wan't so anxious about him comin' back. It
wan't nothin' to me. But I do believe he robbed my hens' nests after he
was dead. Now, whose team is that goin' along the road? If a man would
rein up my horses that way I'd break his neck. Bill, why haven't you
been over here?"

"I've been too busy."

"You haven't been too busy to trudge off to Antioch. What did you go
for?"

"Because it was nobody's business but mine."

"Oh, you don't say so? What made you box with that Irishman? Oh, you
can't fool me. I know more than you think I do. Went up there to
practice. And then a horse kicked Dorsey over in the woods. How about
that? You met him over in the grove some time ago, and he licked you.
How about that? Then you took lessons till you was able to knock his
teeth out. How about that?"

"Who told you all that rubbish?" Milford demanded, uneasy under the gaze
of the company.

"Never mind. There's a freckled faced woman not far from here. And she
couldn't keep a secret any more than a sieve could hold water. You've
got a hired man, too, you must remember."

"Yes, and I'll----"

"You'll do nothin'