A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Old Oscar Lutz, bent, and as wrinkled as one of the walnuts under his ancient trees, had trudged sturdily along in the early evening, his cane tap-tapping on the cement. At the end of the walk by the cemetery he had stopped and leaned for a while on the heavy gnarled stick. From under his shaggy white eyebrows he gazed long and lovingly at the prairie landscape, with the sun slipping down behind the green rolling hills. The graveled highway like a tawny path through a sea of green, stretched as far away as his blurred old eyes could see. As he stood there wrinkling his eyelids, squinting to see the farther, a long green roadster shot by to the north. People in it waved their hands to him, but his slow moving thoughts had not been able to send their message speedily enough to his own calloused old hands, and the car was far in the distance before he could collect himself to respond.

He stood looking after it helplessly. It made him feel stupid in the face of such speed. He had recognized the car, though, as Allen Rinemiller's. He was proud of that. Eyesight was pretty good, yet, he bragged to himself. That would probably be Laura Deal with Allen. Nice little girl. And nice boy.