He yawned and said, "I think I will turn in. Getting old, you know, and I need my rest."
"I'm going to walk around a bit," said Sutton.
"You do a lot of walking, William."
"After dark," said Sutton, "the land is different from what it is in daylight. It smells differently. Sweet and fresh and clean, as if it were just washed. You hear things in the quietness you do not hear in daylight. You walk and you are alone with the land and the land belongs to you."
John H. wagged his head. "It's not the land that's different, William. It is you. Sometimes I think you see and hear things the rest of us do not know. Almost, William…" he hesitated, then went on, "almost as if you did not quite belong."
"Sometimes I think I don't," said Sutton.
"Remember this," John H. told him. "You are one of us…one of the family, seems like. Let me see, how many years now?"
"Ten," said Sutton.
"That's right," said John H. "I can well recall the day you came, but sometimes I forget.. Sometimes it seems that you were always here. Sometimes I catch myself thinking you're a Sutton."
He hacked and cleared his throat, spitting in the dust. "I borrowed your typewriter the other day, William," he said. "I had a letter I had to write. It was an important letter and I wanted it done right."