“The poorest farming land in all the country,” someonecalled it. “The best crop of stones and stumps, I eversaw,” someone else had said. Everyone smiled and droveon, and Shintown and its people passed from theirknowledge.
“Shintown? Where in the name of goodnessdid they get such a name?” the elderly gentlemanin the touring car asked his companion.
“Have to use your shins to get here. It usedto be that Shank’s mare was the only one thatcould travel the miserable roads. They were merefoot-paths. Even the railroads have shot clear ofit. See over there.”
There was truth in the words. Shintown, whichwas no town at all, but a few isolated farmhouses,looked down from its heights on one side upon themain line of the Susquehanna Valley, five milesaway. On the other side, at a little more than halfthe distance, the branch of the W. N. P. and P.wound along the edge of the river. Both roadsavoided Shintown as though it had the plague.The name was quite enough to discourage anyone.Nature had done its best for the place, the peoplehad done their worst. It stood in the valley, andyet on a higher elevation than the country adjacent,the mountain being twenty miles distant.It was as though a broad table had been set in awide country, with the mountain peaks as decorouswaiters standing at the outer edge.
The houses were sagging affairs. They werewell enough at one time, but were now like a goodintention gone wrong. The storm had beaten uponthem for so many years that all trace of paintwas gone. The chimneys sloped as far as the lawof gravity allowed. Gates hung on one hinge, andthe fences had the same angle as an old man sufferingwith lumbago.
The corners of the fields were weed-ridden. Thefarmers never had time to plow clear to the cornersand turn plumb. The soil had as manystones as it had had twenty years before. Thewhole countryside was suffering from lack of ambition.Crops were small, and food and clotheswere meager. The stock showed the same attributes.It was stunted, dwarfed, far from its naturalefficiency in burden bearing, milk-giving oregg-laying.
There was one place not quite like this—theold Wells place at the cross roads. The house wasneither so large, nor so rambling as the others. Itstood deep among some old purple beeches, and insummer it had yellow roses clambering over oneentire side. The color was peculiar, and markedits occupant and owner just a little different fromother people in the community. Everyone concededthat point without a question. She was justa little different. The house was all in shades ofgolden brown; brown that suggested yellow whenthe sun shone. It was a color that not a man inShintown or a painter at the Bend or Po