"Why do people live in houses?" said Don.
"Poor things! They know no better," said Pen.
More than once the road forked but Pen always made her choice unhesitatingly.
"How can you be so sure in the dark?" he asked.
"I just have a general notion," she laughed. "We couldn't go far wrong. The Bay is on one side of us, the fields on the other."
After a long walk they came suddenly to the edge of the woods. A rail fence divided woodland and clearing. There was a barred opening into the field. Pen dropped her bag on the other side and vaulted over like a boy. Don more heavily encumbered had to climb over. On the other side some dim shapes rose awkwardly in the grass and trotted away.
"My sheep," said Pen. "I know where we are. I mended that fence myself to keep them from straying."
At one step they had entered the civilized world again. Up the river the steamboat blew for a wharf, and they could hear from far-off the barking of a dog, and all those vague little sounds that rise from a peopled land at night. The field was populous with crickets and the wide space was made lovely by myriad fire-flies floating about like vagrant stars. The field was a broad one, and the going rough underfoot. Young pine trees were springing up everywhere.
"Hanged if I know where I am," said Don.
"We're facing north now," said Pen. "That pale glow in the clouds is the reflection of the lights of Washington, seventy miles from here."