you were as far out at sea. The whole piece of country most familiar
to John Packer lay there spread out before him in the morning
sunshine. The house and barn and corn-house looked like children's
playthings; he made a vow that he would get out the lumber that winter
for a wood-shed; he needed another building, and his wood-pile ought
to be under cover. His wife had always begged him to build a shed; it
was hard for a woman to manage with wet wood in stormy weather; often
he was away, and they never kept a boy or man to help with farm-work
except in summer. "Joe Banks was terribly surly about something," said
Mr. Packer to himself. But Joe wanted Lizzie. When they were married
he meant to put an addition to the farther side of the house, and to
give Joe a chance to come right there. Lizzie's mother was liable to
be ailing, and needed her at hand. That eighty dollars would come in
handy these hard times.

John Packer liked to be cross and autocratic, and to oppose people;
but there was hidden somewhere in his heart a warm spot of
affectionateness and desire for approval. When he had quarreled for a
certain time, he turned square about on this instinct as on a pivot.
The self-love that made him wish to rule ended in making him wish to
please; he could not very well bear being disliked. The bully is
always a coward, but there was a good sound spot of right-mindedness,
after all, in John Packer's gnarly disposition.

As the thought of the price of his trees flitted through John Packer's
mind, it made him ashamed instead of pleasing him. He rowed harder for
some distance, and then stopped to loosen the comforter about his
neck. He looked back at the two pines where they stood black and
solemn on the distant ridge against the sky. From this point of view
they seemed to have taken a step nearer each other, as if each held
the other fast with its branches in a desperate alliance. The bare,
strong stem of one, the drooping boughs of the other, were
indistinguishable, but the trees had a look as if they were in
trouble. Something made John Packer feel sick and dizzy, and blurred
his eyes so that he could not see them plain; the wind had weakened
his eyes, and he rubbed them with his rough sleeve. A horror crept
over him before he understood the reason, but in another moment his
brain knew what his eyes had read. Along the ridge road came something
that trailed long and black like a funeral, and he sprang to his feet
in the do