And yet Jim backed her into position as
carefully as if she had felt her harness for the first time, handing me
the reins until he strapped my belongings to the hind axle, calling
"Whoa, Bess!" every time she rested a tired muscle. Then he lifted one
long leg over the dash-board and took the seat beside me.
It was my first draught of a long holiday; my breathing-spell; my time
for loose neckties and flannel shirts and a kit slung over my shoulder
crammed with brushes and color-tubes; my time for loafing and inviting
my soul. It felt inexpressibly delightful to be once more out in the
open--out under the wide sweep of the sky; rid of the choke of narrow
streets; exempt of bens, mails, and telegrams, and free of him who
knocks, enters, and sits--and sits--and sits. And it was the Indian
summer of the year; when the air is spicy with the smoke of burning
leaves and the mountains are lost in the haze; when the unshaven
cornfields are dotted with yellow pumpkins and under low-branched trees
the apples lie in heaps; when the leaves are aflame and the round sun
shines pink through opalescent clouds.
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