hree sides. His parents had spent the best
of their lives there and had now been taken to the bosom of the soil
they loved. It seemed natural. Many were the last resting-places of
toilers of the wheat there on those hills. And surely in the long
frontier days, and in the ages before, men innumerable had gone back to
the earth from which they had sprung. The dwelling-places of men were
beautiful; it was only life that was sad. In this poignant, revealing
hour Kurt could not resist human longings and regrets, though he gained
incalculable strength from these two graves on the windy slope. It was
not for any man to understand to the uttermost the meaning of life.

* * * * *

When he left he made his way across some of the fallow land and some of
the stubble fields that had yielded, alas! so futilely, such abundant
harvest. His boyhood days came back to him, when he used to crush down
the stubble with his bare feet. Every rod of the way revealed some
memory. He went into the barn and climbed into the huge, airy loft. It
smelled of straw and years of dust and mice. The swallows darted in and
out, twittering. How friendly they were! Year after year they had
returned to their nests--the young birds returning to the homes of the
old. Home even for birds was a thing of first and vital importance.

It was a very old barn that had not many more useful years to stand.
Kurt decided that he would advise that it be strengthened. There were
holes in the rough shingling and boards were off the sides. In the
corners and on the rafters was an accumulation of grain dust as thick as
snow. Mice ran in and out, almost as tame as the swallows. He seemed to
be taking leave of them. He recalled that he used to chase and trap mice
with all a boy's savage ingenuity. But that boyish instinct, along with
so many things so potential then, was gone now.

Best of all he loved the horses. Most of these were old and had given
faithful service for many years. Indeed, there was one--Old Badge--that
had carried Kurt when he was a boy. Once he and a neighbor boy had gone
to the pasture to fetch home the cows. Old Badge was there, and nothing
would do but that they ride him. From the fence Kurt mounted to his
broad back. Then the neighbor boy, full of the devil, had struck Old
Badge with a stick. The horse set off at a gallop for home with Kurt,
frantically holding on, bouncing up and down on his back. That had been
the ride