His wife now lies beside him, and the white shaft that marks their graves gleams across the wheat fields. From the Norwegian graveyard one looks out over a vast checkerboard, marked off in squares of wheat and corn, light and dark, dark and light. From the graveyard gate one can count a dozen gaily painted farmhouses, the gilded weather vanes on the big red barns wink at each other across the green and brown and yellow fields. The air and the earth are curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath of the other. He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight as a young pine tree, with a handsome head and stormy gray eyes deeply set under a serious brow. That's not much of a job for an athlete. Here I've been to town and back. Alexandra lets you sleep late. She gathered up her reins. Please wait for me, Marie, Emil coaxed. I never see Lou's scythe over here. How brown you've got since you came home. I wish I had an athlete to mow my orchard. I get wet to my knees when I go down to pick cherries. Indeed, he had looked away with the purpose of not seeing it. They think you're proud because you've been away to school or something. There was something individual about the great farm, a most unusual trimness and care for detail. On either side of the road, for a mile before you reached the foot of the hill, stood tall osage orange hedges, their glossy green marking off the yellow fields. Anyone thereabouts would have told you that this was one of the richest farms on the divide, and that the farmer was a woman, Alexandra Bergson. There is even a white row of beehives in the orchard under the walnut trees. Frank read English slowly, and the more he read about this divorce case, the angrier he grew. Marie sighed. A brisk wind had come up and was driving puffy white clouds across the sky. The orchard was sparkling and rippling in the sun. That invitation decided her. Oh, but I'm glad to get this place mowed. Just smell the wild roses. They are always so spicy after a rain. We never had so many of them in here before. I suppose it's the wet season. Will you have to cut them too? I suppose that's the wet season too then. It's exciting to see everything growing so fast, and to get the grass cut. Aren't you splashed? Look at the spiderwebs all over the grass. In a few moments he heard the cherries dropping smartly into the pail, and he began to swing his scythe with that long even stroke that few American boys ever learn. Marie picked cherries and sang softly to herself, stripping one glittering branch after another, shivering when she caught a shower of raindrops on her neck and hair. And Emil mowed his way slowly down toward the cherry trees. That summer the rains had been so many and opportune that it was almost more than Shabata and his man could do to keep up with the corn. The orchard was a neglected wilderness. I do not know all of them but I know Lindens are if I feel that way I feel that way he reached up among the branches and began to pick the sweet insipid fruit long ivory colored berries tipped with faint pink like white coral that fall to the ground unheeded all summer through he dropped a handful into her lap yes do you oh ever so much only he seems kind of staid and school teachery when she used to tell me about him I always wondered whether she was not a little in love with him it would serve you all right if she walked off with Karl I like to talk to Karl about New York and what a fellow can do there. Oh, Emil. Surely you are not thinking of going off there. Marie's face fell under his brooding gaze. I'm sure Alexandra hopes you will stay on here, she murmured. I don't want to stand around and look on. I want to be doing something on my own account. Sometimes I don't want to do anything at all, and sometimes I want to pull the four corners of the divide together. He threw out his arm and brought it back with a jerk, so like a tablecloth. I get tired of seeing men and horses going up and down, up and down. I wish you weren't so restless and didn't get so worked up over things she said sadly thank you he returned shortly and you never used to be cross to me I can't play with you like a little boy any more he said slowly that's what you miss Marie but Emil if I understand then all our good times are over we can never do nice things together anymore and anyhow there's nothing to understand that won't last it will go away and things will be just as they used to I pray for you but that's not the same as if you prayed yourself I can't pray to have the things I want he said slowly and I won't pray not to have them not if I'm damned for it then all our good times are over Saturday August fifteenth the sea unbroken all round no land in sight the horizon seems extremely distant all my danger and sufferings were needed to strike a spark of human feeling out of him but now that I am well his nature has resumed its sway you seem anxious my uncle I said seeing him continually with his glass to his eye anxious one might be with less reason than now I am not complaining that the rate is slow but that the sea is so wide we are losing time and the fact is I have not come all this way to take a little sail upon a pond on a raft he called this sea a pond and our long voyage taking a little sail therefore don't talk to me about views and prospects I take this as my answer and I leave the professor to bite his lips with impatience Sunday August sixteenth nothing new weather unchanged the wind freshens but there seemed no reason to fear