"Morning paper would suit me just as well—haven't seen one to-day. I get a weekly all winter, and I try to get a daily in the summer, but sometimes I fail. Goin' out to anybody's house?"
"I don't know."
The farmer looked at him sharply. A man who did not know—who didn't even guess that he didn't know—was something of a curiosity to him. "Did you expect anybody to meet you?"
"No; I came out to look around a little—thought I might rent a farm if I could strike the right sort of terms."
"Well, I guess you've come to the right place." He turned and pointed far across a meadow to a windmill above tree tops on the brow of a hill. "Mrs. Stuvic, a widow woman, that lives over yonder, has an adjoinin' farm to rent. Get in, and I'll drive you over—goin' that way anyhow, and it shan't cost you a cent. Throw your carpet-bag in there, it won't fall out. Whoa, boys! They won't run away. Yes, sir, as good a little place as there is in the county," he added, turning down a lane. "But the old woman has had all sorts of bad luck with it. That horse would have a fit if he couldn't clap his tail over that line every five minutes. But he won't run away."
"I don't care if he does," said the stranger.
"Well, you would if you had to pick up milk cans for half a mile. He scattered them from that house up yonder down to that piece of timber day before yesterday."
"Did he run away?"
"Well, he wasn't walkin'."
"Then how do you know he won't run away again?"