Page 348 (1/1)

"Look at hoide open everything is! Look, there’s a hamlet! Look, I’ve never seen those people before! Hey, there! Hello, there! We’ve co all the way froarten?" In a lower voice "Isn’t that a peculiar na the! We could live inside that trunk if it was hollow! Is it h the others had taken cheese and baked eggs for the journey, he was so hungry he couldn’t wait for midday so he had eaten another half a loaf of old bread that , the last of the hoard stored in the deacon’s cupboard, too precious to waste although it had becoritted between his teeth

This countryside seeh he wasn’t sure why, but every tiht of that particularly unmistakable oak tree whose broad, leafy crown seemed to hide half the sky, or an apple orchard, or a hollow lush with alder ht he would go blind again His fingers were cold, although it was a late summer day so hot that the heavens had a tendency to shi to rest while he wiped sweat off his brow He pointed southeast where the land wasup that way"

Thunderheads piled up to forreen-gray color along the base

"We’d best take cover," added Uncle

"Can’t we rio a bit farther I don’t see any likely place here and we passed that village too long ago I don’t feel rain yet"

"I’ry"

"We’ll eat e’ve reached shelter"

The leaves danced on the trees, spinning and whirling until he thought he saw dai as they sported in the branches of the broken woodland through which they traveled Meadows and fallow fields cut the woods into clumps and strips where humankind had hacked out a place for theh alone They delved deeply where they weren’t wanted and chopped down the forest because it made them fearful, and in ti like rats set loose in a storehouse of grain

He walked behind Uncle and Brat and the cart, wondering why his fingers, which had been so cold, were now beginning to burn as if he had thrust them into flames and yet here he just walked and there wasn’t a fire anywhere except , too, a conflagration so fierce that although he could see, it wasn’t like true seeing where a man touches an object with his vision and notes andwhat he has seen, only there were objects before hi and he wasn’t sure what they were any s which was gettingabout, Uncle?"

"Hush, child He’s a holythe end of the world?"

"Hush, Brat Hush Look there! Thank the Lady It’s the li wheel that ered sideways until he stuainst a fence, which he hadn’t noticed Thite cloudsaway fro that wall, Uncle?"

"I don’t know, Brat Best you keep quiet and letthe dirt road The wind tossed the boughs in a stand of apple and walnut trees lining the path A pair of ripening apples fell and bounced on the ground A branch heavy alnut fruit whirled past on a gust, sank as the wind dropped off abruptly, and landed on the earth with a thump and crackle

"Hey! Hey, there, traveler!"

A pair of men dressed in the coarse tunics of workmen strode out from the settle contraption that was the wheel and the grinding house A half-built stone wall rose between the mill and the path like a fortification Treu loped forward to place hi