Lameness affects one’s vision. The thick woods were the dregs of the landscape, fit haunt for the acorn-grubbing sow. The road following the ridges was a monster’s spine.
Those wicked brogans led me where they should not. Or maybe it was just my destiny to find what I found.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, after exploring many roads that led to futile nothing, I was on what seemed the main highway, and dragged myself into the sight of the first mortal since daybreak. He seemed like a gnome as he watched me across the furrows. And so he was, despite his red-ripe cheeks. The virginal mountain apple-tree, blossoming overhead, half covering the toad-like cabin, was out of place. It should have been some fabulous, man-devouring devil-bush from the tropics, some monstrous work of the enemies of God.
The child, just in her teens, helping the Gnome to plant sweet potatoes, had in her life planted many, and eaten few. Or so it appeared. She was a crouching lump of earth. Her father dug the furrow. She did the planting, shovelling the dirt with her hands. Her face was sodden as any in the slums of Chicago. She ran to the house a ragged girl, and came back a homespun girl, a quick change. It must not be counted against her that she did not wash her face.
The Gnome talked to me meanwhile. He had made up his mind about me. “I guess you want to stay all night?”
“Yes.”
“The next house is fifteen miles away. You are welcome if what we have is good enough for you. My wife is sick, but she will not let you be any bother.”
I wanted to be noble and walk on. But I persuaded myself my feet were as sick as the woman. I accepted the Gnome’s invitation.
Let the readers with a detective instinct note that his hoe-handle was two feet short, and had been whittled a little around the top to make it usable. It was at best an awkward instrument. (The mystery will soon be solved.)
We were met at the door by one my host called Brother Joseph—a towering shape with an upper lip like a walrus, for it was armed with tusk-like mustaches. He was silent as King Log.