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 welcome, Hamen, havin' gin me a cordial greetin', had gone on to the horse barn with the mair and my pardner. I see Celestine settin' at the other end of the stoop with her easel all up a'ready, and she paintin' away at some landscape or ruther, not mindin' seemin'ly the waves of relationship surgin' round her on every side. But, as I drawed near, she did take her brush in her other hand and shake hands with me, but her hand wuz real limpsy, she didn't realize me much of any, her mind wuzn't in our world at all as I could see.

She wuz paintin' the cloud effects on the water, she said, and her canvas did look all kinder swashy and blue with some storks storkin' along in front, to give the picture character, she said, and she said she never see the cloud effects more strikin' than they wuz that mornin'.

And I sez, "Yes, like as not." And I looked off dreamily for a number of minutes. The lake lay like a long, bright mirror, and all the tiny white and pink clouds that wuz floatin' on the clear, blue sky above wuz reflected on the face of the water, the willers that grew along the banks on one side wuz reproduced and living agin down in that strange underworld, and the big oak tree that sort o' bent over the water with a bluebird settin' out on one branch and singin' sweet and clear.

There they wuz livin' agin, bluebird and all, it wuz a fair seen, a fair seen, and I didn't wonder that Celestine admired it. But with all my admiration, and, though I wuz borne off a considerable ways by my almost boundless delight in the seen, yet some practical common sense remained with me. When anybody is in danger of bein' carried away by their emotions they ort to tie a string to themselves as it were to bring themselves back to this life as long as they have got to stay