City

"Hunting for antiques," said Grant.

"Mebbe," old Dave told him. "Kept out of his way the best I could. But he wasn't no worse'n the one that was tryin' to trace some old road that ran through this way once. He had some maps, too. Left figurin' he'd found it and I didn't have the heart to tell him what he'd found was a path the cows had made."

He squinted at Grant cagily.

"You ain't huntin' no old roads, be you?"

"Nope," said Grant. "I'm a census taker."

"You're what?"

"Census taker," explained Grant. "Take down your name and age and where you live."

"What for?"

"Government wants to know," said Grant.

"We don't bother the gov'ment none," declared old Dave. "What call's the gov'ment got botherin' us?"

"Government won't bother you any," Grant told him. Might even take a notion to pay you something, some day. Never can tell."

"In that case," said old Dave, "it's different."

They perched on the fence, staring across the fields. Smoke curled up from a chimney hidden in a su

Hunched on the rail, Grant felt the heat of the autumn sun soak into his back, smelled the stubbled field.

A good life, he told himself. Good crops, wood to burn, plenty of game to hunt. A happy life.

He glanced at the old man huddled beside him, saw the unworried wrinkles of kindly age that puckered up his face, tried for a moment to envision a life like this – a simple, pastoral life, akin to the historic days of the old American frontier, with all the frontier's compensations, none of its dangers.

Old Dave took the pipe out of his face, waved it at the field.

"Still lots of work to do," he a

"Joe your son?"

"No. Crazy feller that lives off in the woods somewhere. Walks in and fixes things up, then walks off and leaves. Scarcely ever talks. Don't wait for a man to thank him. Just up and leaves. Been doin' it for years now. Grandpappy told me how he first came when he was a youngster. Still coming now."

Grant gasped. "Wait a second. It can't be the same man."

"Now," said old Dave, "that's the thing. Won't believe it, stranger, but he ain't a mite older now than when I first saw him. Fu

"Ants!"

"Sure. Built a house – glasshouse, you know, over an ant hill and heated it, come winter. That's what grandpappy always said. Claimed he'd seen it. But I don't believe a word of it. Grandpappy was the biggest liar in seven counties. Admitted it hisself."

A brass– tongued bell clanged from the su

The old man climbed down from the fence, tapped out his pipe, squinting at the sun.

The bell boomed again across the autumn stillness. "That's ma," said old Dave. "Di

A crazy fellow who came and fixed things and didn't wait for thanks. A man who looked the same as he did a hundred years ago. A chap who built a glasshouse over an ant hill and heated it, come winter.

It didn't make sense and yet old Baxter hadn't been lying. It wasn't another one of those tall yarns that had sprung up and still ran their course out here in the backwoods, amounting now to something that was very close to folklore.

All of the folklore had a familiar ring, a certain similarity, a definite pattern of underlying wit that tagged it for what it was. And this wasn't it. There was nothing humorous, even to the backwoods mind, in housing and heating an ant hill. To qualify for humour a tale like that would have to have a snapper, and this tale didn't have one.

Grant stirred uneasily on the cornshuck mattress, pulling the heavy quilt close around his throat.

Fu

The wind sucked up the hollow and paused on its way to flap a loose shingle on the house, came back to flap it once again. A mouse skittered somewhere in the darkened place. From the bed across the loft came the sound of regular breathing – two of the Baxter younger fry slept there.

A man who came and fixed things and didn't wait for thanks. That was what had happened with the gun. That was what had been happening for years to the Baxters' haywire farm machinery. A crazy feller by the name of Joe, who didn't age and had a handy bent at tinkering.

A thought came into Grant's head; he shoved it back, repressed it. There was no need of arousing hope. Snoop around some, ask guarded questions, keep your eyes open, Grant. Don't make your questions too pointed or they'll shut up like a clam.

Fu

Plenty of room for them here on Earth, lots of room for everyone, for Earth's population had dwindled in the last two hundred years, drained by the pioneers who flocked out to settle other planets, to shape the other worlds of the system to the economy of mankind.

Plenty of room and soil and game.

Maybe it was the best way after all. Grant remembered he had often thought that in the months he had tramped these hills. At times like this, with the comfort of the handmade quilt, the rough efficiency of the cornshuck mattress, the whisper of the wind along the shingled roof. Times like when be sat on the top rail of the fence and looked at the groups of golden pumpkins loafing in the sun.

A rustle came to him across the dark, the rustle of the corn-shuck mattress where the two boys slept. Then the pad of bare feet coming softly across the boards.

"You asleep, mister?" came the whisper.

"Nope. Want to crawl in with me?"

The youngster ducked under the cover, put cold feet against Grant's stomach.

"Grandpappy tell you about Joe?"

Grant nodded in the dark. "Said he hadn't been around, lately."

"Tell you about the ants?"

"Sure did. What do you know about the ants?"

"Me and Bill found them just a little while ago, keeping it a secret. We ain't told anyone but you. But we gotta tell you, I guess. You're from the gov'ment."

"There really was a glasshouse over the hill?"

"Yes, and... and" – the boy's voice gasped with excitement – "and that ain't all. Them ants had carts and there was chimneys coming out of the hill and smoke comin' from the chimneys. And... and-"

"Yes, what else?"

"We didn't wait to see anything else. Bill and me got scared. We ran."

The boy snuggled deeper into the cornshucks. "Gee, ever hear of anything like it? Ants pulling carts!"