Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/148

132 Farm; tall rich milkweed pressed dusty flower-bunches against the fence, and, the sumach brandished smoldering pyramids of fire along the roadsides.

Ken came home late, whistling, up from Asquam. Trade for the Sturgis Water Line was heavy again just now; the hotels and cottages were being vacated every day, and more baggage than the Dutchman could carry lay piled in the Sturgis "warehouse" till next morning. Ken's whistle stopped as he swung into Winterbottom Road and began to climb the hill. Just at the crest of the rise, where the pale strip of road met the twilight of the sky, the full moon hung, a golden disc scarcely more luminous than the sky around it. As he moved up the hill, it moved also, till it floated clear of the dark juniper-trees and stood high above them. Crickets were taking up their minor creaking, and there was no other sound.

Through the half dusk, the white chimneys of Applegate Farm showed vaguely, with smoke rising so lazily that it seemed almost a stationary streak of blue across the trees. What a decent old place it was, thought Ken. Was it only because it constituted home? No; they