Weltschmerz. "I wonder if these farmers aren't bigger than we are? So simple and hard-working. The town lives on them. We townies are parasites, and yet we feel superior to them. Last night I heard Mr. Haydock talking about 'hicks.' Apparently he despises the farmers because they haven't reached the social heights of selling thread and buttons."
"Parasites? Us? Where'd the farmers be without the town? Who lends them money? Who—why, we supply them with everything!"
"Don't you find that some of the farmers think they pay too much for the services of the towns?"
"Oh, of course there's a lot of cranks among the farmers same as there are among any class. Listen to some of these kickers, a fellow'd think that the farmers ought to run the state and the whole shooting-match—probably if they had their way they'd fill up the legislature with a lot of farmers in manure-covered boots—yes, and they'd come tell me I was hired on a salary now, and couldn't fix my fees! That'd be fine for you, wouldn't it!"
"But why shouldn't they?"
"Why? That bunch of——— Telling me——— Oh, for heaven's sake, let's quit arguing. All this discussing may be all right at a party but——— Let's forget it while we're hunting."
"I know. The Wonderlust—probably it's a worse affliction than the Wanderlust. I just wonder———"
She told herself that she had everything in the world. And after each self-rebuke she stumbled again on "I just wonder———"
They ate their sandwiches by a prairie slew: long grass reaching up out of clear water, mossy bogs, red-winged black-birds, the scum a splash of gold-green. Kennicott smoked a pipe while she leaned back in the buggy and let her tired spirit be absorbed in the Nirvana of the incomparable sky.
They lurched to the highroad and awoke from their sun-soaked drowse at the sound of the clopping hoofs. They paused to look for partridges in a rim of woods, little woods, very clean and shiny and gay, silver birches and poplars with immaculate green trunks, encircling a lake of sandy bottom, a splashing seclusion demure in the welter of hot prairie.
Kennicott brought down a fat red squirrel and at dusk he had
