“Say, excuse me.” I turned again to the sack across from me. “Could you tell me the time?” “The time?” His stubble split in a grin. “Golly, fella, we don’t have such a thing as the time. You from outa state, ain’t that so?” I admitted it and he thrust hands in his pockets and laughed as though they were tickling him in there. “Time, eh? Time? They got the time so fouled up that I guess there doesn’t nobody really know it. You take me,” he offered, leaning the whole prize toward me. “Now you take me. I’m a millworker an’ I work switch shifts, sometimes weekends off, sometimes a day here, a night someplace else, so you’d think that’d be enough of a mess, wouldn’t you? But then they got this time thing and I sometimes work one day standard, the next day daylight. Sometimes even come to work on daylight and go home on standard. Oh boy, time? I tell you, you name it. We got fast time, slow time, daylight time, night time, Pacific time, good time, bad time...Yeah, if we Oregonians was hawking time we’d be able to offer some variety! Awfullest mix-up they ever had.” He laughed and shook his head, looking as though he could not have enjoyed the confusion more. The trouble started, he explained, when the Portland district was legislated daylight time, and the rest of the state standard. “All them dang farmers got together is why daylight got beat for the rest of the state. Danged if I see why a cow can’t learn to get up at a different time just as easy as a man, do you?” During the ride I managed to find out that the chambers of commerce of other large cities—Salem, Eugene—had decided to follow Portland’s lead because it was better for their business, but the danged mud-balls in the country would have no part of such high-handed dealing with their polled wishes and they continued to do business on standard. So some towns didn’t officially change to daylight but adopted what they called fast time, to be used only during the week. Other towns used daylight only during store hours. “Anyway, what it comes down to is nobody in the whole danged all-fired state knowin’ what time it is. Don’t that take all?” I joined him in his laughter, then settled back to my window, pleased that the whole danged all-fired state was as ignorant of the time of day as I was; like brother Hank signing his name in capitals, it fit. (At the house Hank finished glancing through the report, then asked of Evenwrite, “How come such a big strike tryin’ to get a little free time, anyhow? What are you boys gonna do with a few extra hours a day if you get it?” “Never mind, that. In this day and age a fellow needs more free time.” “Might be, but I’m damned if I’m gonna foot the bill for that fellow’s free time.”) Down through the druid wood I saw Wildman join with Cleaver Creek, put on weight, exchange his lean and hungry look for one of more well-fed fanaticism. Then came Chichamoonga, the Indian Influence, whooping along with its banks war-painted with lupine and columbine. Then Dog Creek, then Olson Creek, then Weed Creek. Across a glacier-raked gorge I saw Lynx Falls spring hissing and spitting from her lair of fire-bright vine maple, claw the air with silver talons, then crash screeching into the tangle below. Darling Ida Creek slipped demurely from beneath a covered bridge to add her virginal presence, only to have the family name blackened immediately after by the bawdy rollicking of her brash sister, Jumping Nellie. There followed scores of relatives of various nationalities: White Man Creek, Dutchman Creek, Chinaman Creek, Deadman Creek, and even a Lost Creek, claiming with a vehement roar that, in spite of hundreds of other creeks in Oregon bearing the same name, she was the one and only original. . . . Then Leaper Creek ...Hideout Creek . . . Bossman Creek . . . I watched them one after another pass beneath their bridges to join in the gorge running alongside the highway, like members of a great clan marshaling into an army, rallying, swelling, marching to battle as the war chant became deeper and richer. (At the peak of the argument Old Henry came crashing in, making so much noise neither Hank nor Evenwrite could hear. Joe Ben took the old man aside. “Henry, you bein’ in here is gonna make things worse. How about you waiting over in the pantry—” “The boogerin’ pantry!” “Sure; that way you can sneak a listen without them being onto you, you see?”) Stamper Creek was the last of the small tributaries to join. Family history had it that this was the creek up which my Uncle Ben had disappeared in a frenzy of drink and despair to masturbate himself to death. This creek crossed under the highway, fell into the gorge with all the others, and these waters enlisted the South Fork, which had been rallying its own band from the mountains to my left, then, with a catching of breath and a racing of pulse, I saw what had a few miles back been wild streams and rivulets turn from charging green and white into the wide, composed, blueback surface of the Wakonda Auga, moving across the green valley like liquid steel. There should have been background music. (Through the crack in the pantry door old Henry could hear Hank and Evenwrite speaking. The voices were angry, he could tell that much. He concentrated, trying to make out what they were saying, but his own breath was too loud; it roared about the little closet like a gale. Cain’t hear so red-hot no more. Breath pretty good, though, jest listen. He grinned at himself in the dark, smelling the apples in their boxes, the Clorox smell of rat droppings, the banana oil of the old shotgun he held ...Yeah, and smell good, too. Keen nose still on the old dog. He grinned, fumbling with the shotgun in the dark, wishing he could hear clear enough to know what to do.) When the bus dropped on down out of the foothills and rounded a curve and I got my first look at the house across that cold blue surface, I received something of a pleasant shock; the old house was ten times more striking than I remembered. In fact, it did not seem possible that I could have forgotten its looking so magnificent. They must have rebuilt it completely, I thought. But as the bus drew closer I was forced to concede that I ............