As though understanding his thoughts, Hal Winters spoke up.  “Well, has it been worth while?  What about it, eh?  What about marriage and all that?” he asked and then laughed.  Hal tried to keep on laughing but he too was in an earnest mood.  He began to talk earnestly.  “Has a fellow got to do it?” he asked.  “Has he got to be harnessed up and driven through life like a horse?”

Hal didn’t wait for an answer but sprang to his feet and began to walk back and forth between the corn shocks.  He was getting more and more excited.  Bending down suddenly he picked up an ear of the yellow corn and threw it at the fence.  “I’ve got Nell Gunther in trouble,” he said.  “I’m telling you, but you keep your mouth shut.”

Ray Pearson arose and stood staring.  He was almost a foot shorter than Hal, and when the younger man came and put his two hands on the older man’s shoulders they made a picture.  There they stood in the big empty field with the quiet corn shocks standing in rows behind them and the red and yellow hills in the distance, and from being just two indifferent workmen they had become all alive to each other.  Hal sensed it and because that was his way he laughed.  “Well, old daddy,” he said awkwardly, “come on, advise me.  I’ve got Nell in trouble.  Perhaps you’ve been in the same fix yourself.  I know what everyone would say is the right thing to do, but what do you say?  Shall I marry and settle down?  Shall I put myself into the harness to be worn out like an old horse?  You know me, Ray.  There can’t anyone break me but I can break myself.  Shall I do it or shall I tell Nell to go to the devil?  Come on, you tell me.  Whatever you say, Ray, I’ll do.”

Ray couldn’t answer.  He shook Hal’s hands loose and turning walked straight away toward the barn.  He was a sensitive man and there were tears in his eyes.  He knew there was only one thing to say to Hal Winters, son of old Windpeter Winters, only one thing that all his own training and all the beliefs of the people he knew would approve, but for his life he couldn’t say what he knew he should say.

At half-past four that afternoon Ray was puttering about the barnyard when his wife came up the lane along the creek and called him.  After the talk with Hal he hadn’t returned to the cornfield but worked about the barn.  He had already done the evening chores and had seen Hal, dressed and ready for a roistering night in town, come out of the farmhouse and go into the road.  Along the path to his own house he trudged behind his wife, looking at the ground and thinking.  He couldn’t make out what was wrong.  Every time he raised his eyes and saw the beauty of the country in the failing light he wanted to do something he had never done before, shout or scream or hit his wife with his fists or something equally unexpected and terrifying.  Along the path he went scratching his head and trying to make it out.  He looked hard at his wife’s back but she seemed all right.