The Sojourner by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

The afternoon in late November was brooding, making ready for the first snow. The yet unfrozen earth was gray. The winter wheat was a brave pale green before the dark of pine trees and of hemlocks. The snow-containing sky was gray, the copper streaks the color, Ase thought, of Mink Fisher's skin when he had first known the Indian. He wondered why he thought now of old Mink and then remembered. It had been at this season, with sky and earth so colored, that he had once helped his friend to begin the running of the trap lines. He longed suddenly for Mink's presence, since the fur bearing animals, after years of unmolested breeding, were back in numbers. Also, he realized, his present content was so great that it needed only Mink to complete it. The need of his brother was a steadier, more constant pain.

Ase turned his rig into the barn for unhitching, marveling at his felicity. All his crops had prospered. Severe cold had held off, so that when the impending snow should fall, his increased acreage of winter wheat would be bedded safe and soft against anything but unforeseen catastrophe. The new barn, called for by his expanding crops, had been raised, with the help of the neighbors. Nellie was allowing him to have Tim McCarthy with him for the winter.