"I had thought of returning to Marion, where my father practised," Sommers suggested. "If we could only stay here, in this shanty three miles from a biscuit!"
Alves smiled, and did not argue the point. They went to the shore where their little flat-bottomed boat was drawn up. Perota Lake, on which the tiny frame cottage stood, was a shallow, reedy pond, connecting by sluggish brooks with a number of other lakes. The shore on this side of the lake was a tangled thicket; the opposite shore rose in a gentle slope to fields of sun-dried grain. The landscape was rich, peaceful, uneventful, with wide spaces of sun and cloud and large broad Wisconsin fields. The fierce west wind came cool and damp from the water. Sommers pulled out of the reedy shore and headed for a neighboring lake. After rowing in silence for some time, he rested on his oars.
"Why couldn't we stay here? That is what I want to do—to keep out of the city with its horrible clatter of ambitions, to return to the soil, and live like the primitive peasant without ambition."
The Wisconsin woman smiled sympathetically. She had grown strong and firm-fleshed these summer weeks, sucking vitality from the warm soil.
"The land is all owned around here!" she laughed. "And they use herb doctors or homeopaths. No, we should starve in the midst of harvests. There is only one thing to do, to go back where we can earn a bit of bread."
Sommers started to row, but put down the oars again.
"Do you want to go back?"
"I never think about it. It is so arranged," she answered simply. "Perhaps it will not be always so."
"Which means that we may be more fortunate than our neighbors?"
"I don't know—why think? We have until Monday," and she leaned forward to touch his hand.