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 and stayed around a while, she said, but going to town would subject him to the danger of running into the surviving members of the gang that had raided them. Which, Tom admitted with no apparent concern, was true.

Mrs. Ellison regretted that misfortune had reduced them to such straits that they could no longer offer anybody work, although there was enough of it needed around the place, in all conscience. Some of the neighbors would be driving to Drumwell in a few days, very likely; as for herself and Eudora, they seldom made the trip. It took two days, and they hadn't much to go for, although Eudora was planning big things in the bone trade, which would keep her on the road all the time if her project developed as she hoped.

Simpson proposed to work around the place, putting things to rights, until somebody came along with a conveyance bound for town. Mrs. Ellison agreed to the proposal eagerly, suggesting a scythe among the undergrowth in the orchard.

So it came around that Tom Simpson found himself hitched to an Irishman's razor among the tall horseweeds in the orchard that afternoon. It was a blue October day; the ground was sown with apples ripe and fragrant, apples fermenting and cidery and squashy under foot, apples enough to have supplied the entire population of that township. There was not even a hog on the Ellison place to profit by a little of the waste.

It was pleasant in the orchard, although mowing thickstemmed weeds which stood higher than his head was a new experience for Tom. There was no sound of human activity in the neighborhood, although Mrs. Ellison said