In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats and barley, and the sound of their machines clattering, now low, now loud, came to his ears. Flies buzzed near him, and a kingbird clattered overhead. He noticed again, as he had many a time when a boy, that the softened sound of the far-off reaper was at times exactly like the hum of a bluebottle fly buzzing heedlessly about his ears.
A slender and very handsome young man was shocking grain near the fence, working so desperately he did not see Will until greeted by him. He looked up, replied to the greeting, but kept on until he had finished his last stook; then he came to the shade of the tree and took off his hat.
"Nice day to sit under a tree and fish."
Will smiled. "I ought to know you, I suppose; I used to live here years ago."
"Guess not; we came in three years ago."
The young man was quick-spoken and pleasant to look at. Will felt freer with him.
"Are the Kinneys still living over there?" He nodded at a group of large buildings.
"Tom lives there. Old man lives with Ed. Tom ousted the old man some way, nobody seems to know how, and so he lives with Ed."
Will wanted to ask after Agnes, but hardly felt able. "I s'pose John Hannan is on his old farm?"
"Yes. Got a good crop this year."