What any horse
could do, he did.
About two miles beyond I came again to a cluster of
buildings, close to the corner of the crossroads, sheltered,
homelike, inviting in a large natural bluff of tall,
dark-green poplars. Those first two houses had had an
aristocratic aloofness--I should not have liked to turn
in there for shelter or for help. But this was prosperous,
open-handed, well-to-do middle class; not that conspicuous
"moneyedness" that we so often find in our new west when
people have made their success; but the solid, friendly,
everyday liberality that for generations has not had to
pinch itself and therefore has mellowed down to taking
the necessities and a certain amount of give and take
for granted. I was glad when on closer approach I noticed
a school embedded in the shady green of the corner. I
thought with pleasure of children being so close to people
with whom I should freely have exchanged a friendly
greeting and considered it a privilege. In my mental
vision I saw beeches and elms and walnut trees around a
squire's place in the old country.
The road began to be lined with thickets of shrubs here:
choke cherry bushes, with some ripe, dried-up black
berries left on the branches, with iron-black bark, and
with wiry stems, in the background; in front of them,
closer to the driveway, hawthorn, rich with red fruit;
rosebushes with scarlet leaves reaching down to nearly
underfoot.
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