Atlanta Daily World

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SHERRY LET Lex talk on, not interrupting, hoping it would help. She learned that he had met Kay only a few months before he went into service and that the attraction between them had been strong and swift. Normally, Lex would have gone on working for Kay's father and he and Kay would have got engaged and then married. They would have rented an apartment and, later on, bought a house in a good suburb, not too far out from the city. That was still the pattern Kay wanted their married life to follow.
But Lex had changed, or, rather, he had found himself. The war had jolted him out of the rut in which he had been fairly contented so long as he knew no other way of life. During his training, his service in England and France, he had gained a different perspective, one that enabled him to see the narrowness of his former existence. The mere making of money at a job that bored him no longer seemed a sufficient incentive. His sense of values had altered. And, when he came home, he found himself feeling crowded and hemmed in by the city, profoundly disturbed by the throngs of people all about, the rushing, noisy tempo.
Lex told Sherry, "But when I tried to make Kay understand how I felt-she thought I was actually a little off the beam. She wanted me to see a psychiatrist."
"But that's absurd," Sherry said. "Lots of people hate the city. Getting away from it had simply opened your eyes. And why would you want to pick up where you'd left off when you realized how much happier you'd be living on a farm?"
Lex said, "I can't make Kay see it that way. When I took that agricultural course, she thought it was just a crazy whim. Then, when I began working for Steve, she realized I was serious."
His blue eyes were troubled, questioning, on Sherry's face. "She says I'm not being fair to her-and maybe she's right. I don't know. And she says she hates the country-but how can you hate a way of life you know nothing about?"
"Maybe," Sherry said, "that's why she hates it-because she doesn't know it. Some city people seem to think all farmers are ignorant and backward, that you're as good as buried in the country. If you could get Kay to come out here sometime and meet Steve and Aunt Pen and their friends, surely she'd see how mistaken she is."
"You think I haven't tried? She won't come. All we do is quarrel-and still I'm crazy about her. She's so beautiful, Sherry. She can be gay and sweet. If I'd give in to her way of thinking, she'd marry me right away.
But-I can't!" He put his palms on the table, pushed himself to his feet. Maybe we can work it out some- time-God knows I hope so! At least, we won't be quarreling for a while-I learned that last night."
"What do you mean?"
"Kay's going to Palm Beach for six weeks. I expect she thinks the absent treatment will bring me to what she considers my senses more quickly and effectively than anything else."
Sherry could only say, inadequately, "I'm sorry, Lex."
"Thanks. You were swell to let me get it all off my chest."
He grinned down at her briefly. The friendliness of his glance warmed her. Surely he must like her a little, to take her so fully into his confidence . . .
Life at the farm was a busy routine into which Sherry fitted easily and which she loved. She rose early and retired early, just as the others did. She helped Aunt Pen with the housework, augmenting the willing, but not too skillful help of the young hired girl, Etta. Sherry wasn't very skillful, either, but she was interested and quick to learn. And Aunt Pen took pleasure in teaching her.
Steve and Lex, along with the other hired man, Jed Porter, were endlessly busy out-of-doors and around the big barns, even in this winter season. Sherry spent all the time she could with them, doing any small job they entrusted to her, enjoying to the full every minute of friendly association. She looked like an eager, long-legged child, in her blue jeans and leather jacket, her hair imprisoned under a bright peasant kerchief.
Steve said once, "We'll make a farmer of her yet, won't we, Lex?"
And Lex answered, grinning, "You bet! A darned good farmer."
Sherry felt pride out of all proportion rise within her.
It seemed to her, during that week's stay at Steve's farm, that the richness and satisfaction of country living became more clearly apparent to her than ever before. Spending so much time with Steve and Lex, listening to their talk, asking questions and so learning, Sherry began to understand and share Steve's sound and deeply rooted philosophy of living. Steve was a firm believer in the importance of agriculture to the economy of the nation as a whole. But, more personally, he felt that no other field of endeavor offered such rich rewards, not in money, but in the deeper and more important fundamentals of life. A man could earn, on even a fairly small farm, enough for the comfortable support of himself and his family. And beyond that, he could do work that was never monotonous to the understanding mind. He could drive a tractor, plant and harvest