Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/43

 Lou Poore's sister. She ain't been here for twenty years, the paper says. She married an Fyetalian. I bet she'll notice changes. This town ain't the same place it was twenty years ago.

I should say not.

There's the new water-works. ..

An' soon there'll be the new depot. ..

An' brick pavin'. ..

Iowa's gettin' to be a pretty important state. The biggest battleship in the navy's named after Iowa.

That's so.

Children were passing the house on their way to school; business men on their way to business. Mrs. Townsend, bound for market, drove by in her surrey. On a neighbouring lawn, the grass of which grew in irregular clumps, a robin, smart, alert, and scarlet-breasted, pecked worms from the turf, swallowed them, then gazed about with pride as he hopped, hopped. The Parcæ continued to rock.