Some of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a neurasthenic cow in the front yard, but Dexter Green's father owned the second best grocery-store in Black Bear—the best one was "The Hub," patronized by the wealthy people from Sherry Island—and Dexter caddied only for pocket-money.

 

In the fall when the days became crisp and gray, and the long Minnesota winter shut down like the white lid of a box, Dexter's skis moved over the snow that hid the fairways of the golf course. At these times the country gave him a feeling of profound melancholy—it offended him that the links should lie in enforced fallowness, haunted by ragged¹ sparrows for the long season. It was dreary², too, that on the tees where the gay colors fluttered in summer there were now only the desolate³ sand-boxes knee-deep in crusted ice. When he crossed the hills the wind blew cold as misery⁴, and if the sun was out he tramped with his eyes squinted⁵ up against the hard dimensionless glare.

 

In April the winter ceased abruptly⁷. The snow ran down into Black Bear Lake scarcely tarrying for the early golfers to brave the season with red and black balls. Without elation⁸, without an interval⁹ of moist glory, the cold was gone.

 

Dexter knew that there was something dismal¹⁰ about this Northern spring, just as he knew there was something gorgeous about the fall. Fall made him clinch¹¹ his hands and tremble and repeat

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