"They let you have the farm as your share; you were afraid of the other stuff?"
"Yes; it didn't look very good and I was perfectly satisfied. I thought the arrangement fair enough to me: Charlie knew about the other things and I didn't. Most of them were very doubtful."
"They told you they were doubtful; you didn't know anything about them. Was that the way of it?"
"Yes; that was about the way of it, Mr. Montgomery."
Amzi glared and drew out his handkerchief to mop his face.
"I saw an automobile come out of your place awhile ago and climb the hill toward town. Charlie been to see you?"
"Yes. He had some friends with him from the city. Charlie knows no end of people."
"There are people like that," said Amzi, kicking a clod, and in doing so nearly losing his equilibrium; "there are people with a talent for knowing folks." This was not an important observation, nor was it at all relevant. Mr. Montgomery had merely gone as far as he cared to in the discussion of the distribution of Samuel Holton's estate and this was his way of changing the subject.
Amzi walked ahead with Perry when they met at the edge of the orchard and Phil loitered behind with Fred. A hawk swung from the cloudless blue; sparrows, disturbed by these visitors, flew down the orchard aisles in panic. The air was as dry as the stubble of the shorn fields. From the elevation crowned by the orchard it was possible to survey the neighborhood and Phil and Fred paused in silence for several minutes, with their faces turned toward the creek.
Seeing Phil thus was very different from seeing her across a fence in the moonlight, or meeting her at her kitchen door. Her new dark-blue gown with hat to match struck him as being very stylish, as indeed, they were, having come from the best shop in Indianapolis. Phil in gloves was a different Phil, a remote being quite out of hailing distance. He was torn between admiration for her dressed-upness and rebellion against a splendor that set her apart like a goddess for timorous adoration. Standing beside and a little behind her, his soul was shaken by the quick shadowings of her lashes. He was so deep in thought during this silent contemplation that he started and blushed when she turned round suddenly.