MY NEIGHBORS FIELD 



the law by the forelock and was adjudged 

 (possession of the field. Eighteen days 

 I later Roeder arrived on snowshoes, both 

 /feet frozen, and the money in his pack. 

 I In the long suit at law ensuing, the field 

 fell to Ruffin, that clever one-armed lawyer 

 with the tongue to wile a bird out of the 

 bush, Connor's counsel, and was sold by 

 him to my neighbor, whom from envying 

 his possession I call Naboth. 



Curiously, all this human occupancy of 

 greed and mischief left no mark on the 

 field, but the Indians did, and the unthink- 

 ing sheep. Round its corners children 

 pick up chipped arrow points of obsidian, 

 scattered through it are kitchen middens 

 and pits of old sweat - houses. By the 

 south corner, where the campoodie stood, 

 is a single shrub of "hoopee" {Lycium An- 

 dersonii), maintaining itself hardly among 

 128 ~ 



