Ralph Henry Barbour

“ The farmer looked puzzled. “Who lives in it?” he asked.
The traveler spread his hands. “I don't know. Perhaps it is unoccupied. It is a small house, white, with green blinds. It stands a little way back from the road, and looks with friendly windows over a hedge. Beside the path there are, I think—” the traveler half closed his eyes, then nodded reassuringly: “Yes, there are flower-beds bordered with box; and at one side there is a garden, a sunny, tangled garden of old-fashioned flowers; heliotrope and gilly-flowers and bleeding-heart and sweet alyssum and many others. ”

“ Afar a mowing-machine moved slowly against the horizon, and the clatter of its blades seemed to intensify the heat, like the midsummer rasping of a locust. All about was the fragrance of clover, of red clover knee-deep in the ripe meadows, of alsike clover hugging the lichened walls, of white clover, shy and lowly, peering from the wild tangle along the way. Milkweed was adding pale mauve shadows to its delicate green; self-heal bravely defied the dust with purple blooms, and up the walls the bindweed was shooting its green arrows and tinkling its triumph on pinky bells. ”

“ And as he spoke a smile hovered about his mouth and in and out of his eyes, and the farmer, who had made his first reply with the hostile suspicion of the New Englander accosted by a stranger, relaxed mentally and physically. He raised a thumb in the direction of his shoulder. “About a mile or so back,” he answered.
“Then, perhaps you can help me. You see”—the traveler seemed then to take the other into his confidence with a glance and a smile—“I am looking for a house.”
“A house?” The farmer digested it slowly. At last, “To live in?” he asked.
“And die in,” responded the traveler gaily. ”