Jeffers and I let up on the oars when we approached the house. There was no sound now but the current.

Set at the top of a hill above the Cedar River was the old house of Zibbik — a mansion proper — all brick and slate roof. The nature of the house owes itself to three episodes in the history of Iowan poultry. One: in 1929, farm-raised chickens suddenly began to die from swollen organs and paralysis. Two: it was discovered that they were dying from a herpesvirus carried on clouds of their own dander. Three: a doctor named T.S. Zibbik invented a vaccination called Zibbik-A.D., and was compensated in kind, in U.S. dollars. It's a town story.

There is a sunroom on the house overlooking the river with a large picture window, and letters in that window, two feet high, spell out the word ZIBBIK in leaded glass.

But the letters are backwards. They are meant not for the outside observer, but for the family inside. I can see only the inverted letters of the word

KIBBIZ

while the occupants inside see the real name, and are lit up — as they must be — with the glow of light that filters through the letters of their own name, when the day ends, and the western sun comes in.

Jeffers gazed at the windows.

"Don't move," he said. "I think I can see a man."

But it was only a trick of the light. We were past it now. We paddled on toward Union City. You never see a man there anyways, and I've been coming down this water for years.