I set him down as being about twenty-two years old and some kind of outdoor workman, not a farmer.

When he got off, which was before the car stopped, so that he had to jump and run with it, he gave a wild flourish with both arms, grimaced at the conductor, and went off down the road whistling for all he was worth.  How I enjoyed the sight of him!  He was so charged with youthful energy, so overflowing with the joy of life, that he could scarcely contain himself.  What a fine place the world was to him!  And what comical and interesting people it contained!  I was sorry when he got off.

Two or three days later I was on my way up the town road north of my farm when I was astonished and delighted to see Bill for the second time.  He was coming down the road pulling a wire over the crosspiece of a tall telephone pole (the company is rebuilding and enlarging its system through our town).  He was holding the wire close drawn over his right shoulder, his strong hands gripped and pressed upon his breast.  The veins stood out in his brown neck where the burlap shoulder pad he wore was drawn aside by the wire.  He leaned forward, stepping first on his toe, which he dug into the earth and then, heavily letting down his heel, he drew the other foot forward somewhat stiffly.  The muscles stood out in his powerful shoulders and thighs.  His legs were double-strapped with climbing spurs.  He was a master lineman.

As I came alongside he turned a good-humoured sweaty face toward me.

“It’s dang hot,” said he.

“It is,” said I.

There is something indescribably fascinating about the sight of a strong workman in the full swing of his work, something—­yes, beautiful!  A hard pull of a job, with a strong man doing it joyfully, what could be finer to see?  And he gave such a jaunty sense of youth and easy strength!

I watched him for some time, curiously interested, and thought I should like well to know him, but could not see just how to go about it.

The man astride the cross-arm who was heaving the wire forward from the spool on the distant truck suddenly cried out: 

“Ease up there, Bill, she’s caught.”

So Bill eased up and drew his arm across his dripping face.

“How many wires are you putting up?” I asked, fencing for some opening.

“Three,” said Bill.

Before I could get in another stroke the man on the pole shouted: 

“Let ’er go, Bill.”  And Bill let ’er go, and buckled down again to his job.

“Gee, but it’s hot,” said he.

In the country there are not so many people passing our way that we cannot be interested in all of them.  That evening I could not help thinking about Bill, the lineman, wondering where he came from, how he happened to be what he was, who and what sort were the friends he made, and the nature of his ambitions, if he had any.  Talk about going to the North Pole!  It is not to be compared, for downright fascination, with the exploration of an undiscovered human being.