I heard him singing afar off.
He did not see me as he went by, but as I stood looking out at him, it
came over me with a sudden sense of largeness and quietude that the sun
shone on him as genially as it did on me, and that the leaves did not
turn aside from him, nor the birds stop singing when he passed.
"He also belongs here," I said.
And I watched him as he mounted the distant hill, until I could no
longer hear the high clear cadences of his song. And it seemed to me
that something human, in passing, had touched me.
VII
AN OLD MAID
One of my neighbours whom I never have chanced to mention before in
these writings is a certain Old Maid. She lives about two miles from my
farm in a small white house set in the midst of a modest, neat garden
with well-kept apple trees in the orchard behind it. She lives all alone
save for a good-humoured, stupid nephew who does most of the work on the
farm--and does it a little unwillingly. Harriet and I had not been here
above a week when we first made the acquaintance of Miss Aiken, or
rather she made our acquaintance. For she fills the place, most
important in a country community, of a sensitive social
tentacle--reaching out to touch with sympathy the stranger.
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