He cried in high dudgeon, just as if he owned the whole of the peppers and could dispose of them all to suit his fancy, and the old gentleman was so delighted with his success that he had to burst out into a series of short, happy bits of laughter that occupied quite a space of time. At last he came out of them and wiped his face vigorously. It is sixteen years since John Bergson died. 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 Amiel 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.