Keeping One's Place 



provisioning took on a zest since I did not have 

 to compromise myself by telephone and might 

 go out to fill my basket inspirationally from the 

 truck teams on the road. Suppose things were 

 not ordered. Suppose at my caprice, I dropped 

 them, overlooked them, let them wait. My house 

 was no domestic tyrant. When I chanced to look 

 its way it was complacent and brought me up 

 with no sharp reminders of indifference or of neg- 

 lect. It was there it seemed to say to hold my 

 peace in keeping. So long as I was happy, it 

 would not interfere. 



It was not long, however, before our security 

 was threatened from outside. Those friends with 

 whom I thought to break off short by disappear- 

 ance, had got wind of my whereabouts. Sweetly 

 rustic, so it sounded. But was my attachment 

 sordid or romantic? They would not drop me 

 until they had been to see. And so one after- 

 noon I met the first outrider scouting on the road. 

 She had been looking for my place, she couldn't 

 seem to find it. Some one had said something 

 of a marsh. I pointed to it lying tawny in the 

 sunlight and then to the strip of shells that 



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