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 he was content to remain an isolated figure, absorbed in the workings of his own awakening mind. An absurd and amusing thing happened. After the impulse to try to invent a plant-setting machine came to him, he went every evening to conceal himself in the fence corner and watch the French family at their labors. Absorbed in watching the mechanical move- ments of the men who crawled across the fields in the moonlight, he forgot they were human. After he had watched them crawl into sight, turn at the end of the rows, and crawl away again into the hazy light that had reminded him of the dim distances of his own Missis- sippi River country, he was seized with a desire to crawl after them and to try to imitate their movements. Certain intricate mechanical problems, that had already come into his mind in connection with the proposed ma- chine, he thought could be better understood if he could get the movements necessary to plant setting into his own body. His lips began to mutter words and get- ting out of the fence corner where he had been con- cealed he began to crawl across the field behind the French boys. " The down stroke will go so," he mut- tered, and bringing up his arm swung it above his head. His fist descended into the soft ground. He had for- gotten the rows of new set plants and crawled directly over them, crushing them into the soft ground. He stopped crawling and waved his arm about. He tried to relate his arms to the mechanical arms of the ma- chine that was being created in his mind. Holding one arm stiffly in front of him he moved it up and down. " The stroke will be shorter than that. The machine must be built close to the ground. The wheels and the horses will travel in paths between the rows. The