Sam Walker had been across the fields to a distant farmhouse and on returning had sought the shelter of the grove, where for a moment he had fallen asleep.
“Hello!” he said, rubbing his eyes. “It’s you, Mr. Travers. I’m just resting and trying to keep cool. Isn’t the heat a corker? Sit down, you seem tuckered out.”
He moved along and Rex sat down, admitting that he was tuckered out and the day a corker, while Sam continued:
“If there was anything here to draw water with, I’d get some for you to bathe your face and hands. You look kinder queer.”
It does not make one feel better to be told that he looks queer, and Rex was not an exception. He felt queer. The hornets were in full play, and he put up his hand to brush away one which seemed buzzing in his face, while the eye was staring at him from the stone near the well where it had first appeared to him.
“I’m tired and warm, that’s all,” he said, while Sam remarked that he guessed a shower must be coming up, as he felt like thunder and had all day.
Rex laughed at the odd speech and replied that he believed he, too, felt like thunder, or something worse.
“I wish I could get some water,” Sam said. “There used to be a bucket here but it is gone, and the nonsense about played out. I was kinder glad when I heard the glass go into the well. Was you much scared when she looked over your shoulder? I thought you was goin’ to tumble in, and you would if she hadn’t catched you.”
“Who looked over my shoulder? What do you mean?” Rex asked, and Sam replied:
“Why, she, Miss Burdick, you know, when you looked into the well yesterday. Don’t you remember?”