They sat together on the train and talked. Charles had spent one Sunday during the summer with the Thomases; they had a tennis court and chickens. Thomas had been promoted to Assistant Professor, but he kept his extension classes still, as the oldest boy was entering college this fall.
"He was crazy about some old French verse forms that day. Couldn't talk about anything else. Mrs. Thomas wanted to talk about the refinishing of the walls."
"I'll wager she did. Verse forms interest her only as a means to the salary end."
"But she's a fine type of woman, don't you think?"
"She's about as intellectual as a--a jellyfish. She's not a jellyfish, though."
"Thomas gets enough enjoyment from his own mind."
They walked from the station through the crowded, dingy houses near the river, climbed a long hill, and at the top found the country, soft and lovely in the hazy September sunlight. As they climbed, the river dropped beneath them, opal-blue and calm, the hollows of the wooded Westchester hills gathered purple shadows, and on the slopes toward which they climbed a branch of maple flamed at times like a shrill, sweet note in the mellow silence.
"It must be good for their children, living out here." Charles sniffed at the air. "Smell that wood smoke! Bonfires, and nuts----"
"How'd you like to climb that hill every night?"
"Thomas has a flivver. There, you can see the house through those poplars."
The Thomases were on the porch, rising to meet them with a flurry of innumerable children and dogs and cats. Mrs. Thomas, small, pink, worried, with curly gray hair and a high voice; Mr. Thomas, of indifferent stature, with an astonishingly large head, smooth dark hair, nearsighted eyes behind heavy glasses, and a large, gentle mouth; the children--there were only five, after all, from Theodore, the eldest, who was curly and pink like Mrs. Thomas, down to Dorothy, the youngest, who already wore glasses as thick as her father's.
"I wanted Theodore to drive down for you, but you said you wanted to walk." Mrs. Thomas jerked the chairs into companionable nearness. "Quite a climb up our hill."
"Mrs. Thomas can't imagine any one liking to walk," said her husband.
"Not a mother and wife, at least. Men don't know what being on their feet means, do they, Mrs. Hammond?"