A path took her to the Corinth road, leading back to town. Dandelions glowed in patches amidst the wild grass by the way. A stream golloped through a concrete culvert beneath the road. She trudged in healthy weariness.
A man in a bumping Ford rattled up beside her, hailed, “Give you a lift, Mrs. Kennicott?”
“Thank you. It's awfully good of you, but I'm enjoying the walk.”
“Great day, by golly. I seen some wheat that must of been five inches high. Well, so long.”
She hadn't the dimmest notion who he was, but his greeting warmed her. This countryman gave her a companionship which she had never (whether by her fault or theirs or neither) been able to find in the matrons and commercial lords of the town.
Half a mile from town, in a hollow between hazelnut bushes and a brook, she discovered a gipsy encampment: a covered wagon, a tent, a bunch of pegged-out horses. A broad-shouldered man was squatted on his heels, holding a frying-pan over a camp-fire. He looked toward her. He was Miles Bjornstam.
“Well, well, what you doing out here?” he roared. “Come have a hunk o' bacon. Pete! Hey, Pete!”
A tousled person came from behind the covered wagon.
“Pete, here's the one honest-to-God lady in my bum town. Come on, crawl in and set a couple minutes, Mrs. Kennicott. I'm hiking off for all summer.”
The Red Swede staggered up, rubbed his cramped knees, lumbered to the wire fence, held the strands apart for her. She unconsciously smiled at him as she went through. Her skirt caught on a barb; he carefully freed it.