“Hungry!” she burst out, “and j-joking about it!”
I couldn't say a single word; something—it must have been a piece of the rhubarb pie—stuck in my throat. So I sat there and watched her moving quietly about in that immaculate kitchen. After a time I walked over to where she stood by the table and put my arm around her quickly. She half turned her head, in her quick, businesslike way. I noted how firm and clean and sweet her face was.
“Harriet,” I said, “you grow younger every year.”
No response.
“Harriet,” I said, “I haven't seen a single person anywhere on my journey that I like as much as I do you.”
The quick blood came up.
“There—there—David!” she said.
So I stepped away.
“And as for rhubarb pie, Harriet—”
When I first came to my farm years ago there were mornings when I woke up with the strong impression that I had just been hearing the most exquisite sounds of music. I don't know whether this is at all a common experience, but in those days (and farther back in my early boyhood) I had it frequently. It did not seem exactly like music either, but was rather a sense of harmony, so wonderful, so pervasive that it cannot be described. I have not had it so often in recent years, but on the morning after I reached home it came to me as I awakened with a strange depth and sweetness. I lay for a moment there in my clean bed. The morning sun was up and coming in cheerfully through the vines at the window; a gentle breeze stirred the clean white curtains, and I could smell even there the odours of the garden.