It was nice to go there with Sid but it was even nicer to go alone. There was nothing then to come between her and the silent, rapt communion she seemed to hold with it. It was the loneliest and loveliest spot on the farm. Its very silence was friendly and seemed to come out of the woods around it like a real presence. No wind ever blew there and rain and snow fell lightly. In summer it was a pool of sunlight, in winter a pool of frost…now in autumn a pool of color. Musky, spicy shadows seemed to hover around its gray old fences. Pat always felt that the field knew it was beautiful and was happy in its knowledge. She lingered in it until the sun set and then went slowly back home, savoring every moment of the gathering dusk. What a lovely phrase “gathering dusk” was…almost as lovely as Judy’s “dim”, though the latter had a certain eerie quality that always gave Pat a rapture.

At the top of the hill field she paused, as always, to gloat over Silver Bush. The light shone out from the door and windows of the kitchen where Judy would be preparing supper, with the cats watching for a “liddle bite” and McGinty cocking a pointed ear for Pat’s footstep. Would it be as nice when that unknown creature, the all-too-necessary hired man, would be hanging round, waiting for his supper? Of course it wouldn’t. He would be a stranger and an alien. Pat fiercely resented the thought of him.

They would have supper by lamplight now. For a while she always hated to have to light the lamp for supper…it meant that the wind had blown the summer away and that winter nights were closing in. Then she liked it…it was so cozy and companionable and Silver Bushish, with Judy’s “dim” looking in through the crimson vines around the window.