"You are a strange man, William Jones," John H. Sutton told him. "And a good one, too. I've never had a better hired hand in all the years I've farmed. None of the others would stay more than a year or two, always running off, always going somewhere."
"I have no place to go," said Asher Sutton. "There's no place I want to go. This is as good as any."
And it was better, he told himself, than he had thought it would be, for here were peace and security and a living close to nature that no man of his own age ever had experienced.
They leaned on the pasture bars and watched the twinkling of the house and auto lights from across the river. In the darkness on the slope below them the cattle, turned out after milking, moved about with quiet, soft sounds, cropping a last few mouthfuls of grass before settling down to sleep. A breeze with a touch of coolness in it drifted up the slope and it was fine and soothing after a day of heat.
"We always get a cool night breeze," said old John H. "No matter how hot the day may be we have easy sleeping."
He sighed. "I wonder sometimes," he said, "how well contented a man should let himself become. I wonder if it may not be a sign of — well, almost sinfulness. For Man is not by nature a contented animal. He is restless and unhappy and it's that same unhappiness that has driven him, like a lash across his back, to his great accomplishments."
"Contentedness," said Asher Sutton, "is an indication of complete adjustment to one's particular environment. It is a thing that is not often found…that is too seldom found. Someday Man and other things as well, will know how to achieve it and there will be peace and happiness in all the galaxy."
John H. chuckled. "You take in a lot of territory, William."
"I was taking the long-range view," said Sutton. "Someday Man will be going to the stars."
John H. nodded. "Yes, I suppose they will. But they will go too soon. Before Man goes to the stars he should learn how to live on Earth."