I felt far less sanguine than he appeared to be on that
point.

"Isn't it a mercy that our corn and wheat have been let to grow in
peace this year?" I said, after Mrs. Horton had taken her leave. "It's
the first year since we have been here that such a thing has
happened."

"I hope it will be the last year that we will have to try raising a
crop without a fence," Jessie replied. For our fence building had
stopped abruptly with the digging of some post holes on that day in
April. Pumping the water out of the mine had been an expensive piece
of work, and all the valley people who had lost relatives in the
accident, many who had not, indeed, had come gallantly to the Gray
Eagle's aid when that task was undertaken. Because of the aid that we
had furnished, our fence was still unbuilt.

CHAPTER X

RALPH AND I GO BLACKBERRYING

"Chillen's, dere's lots ob blackberries on de hill above de w'eat
fiel'," Joe stopped to remark, as he was about starting for the
blacksmith shop with the reaper, the next morning.

"They'll have to stay there as far as I'm concerned," returned Jessie,
who was busily engaged in sewing up the gaping rents in Mr. Horton's
coat; "I haven't time to gather them."

"Me do det 'em!" exclaimed Ralph, starting up from the floor, where he
had been vainly trying to fasten some paper boots on Guard's paws.
Guard did not object, but, when a boot was, after much trouble,
partially secured, he took it in his mouth and calmly pulled it off.
"Me do dit 'ackburries yite now," reiterated Ralph.

"No," said Jessie, "Ralphie can't go."

Thus summarily enjoined, Ralph began to roar, as a matter of course.
Joe, who had already started to climb into the reaper seat, came back
and looked in at the door, the better to look reproachfully at us.

"I doan like dish yer sperrit ob money-gettin'," he declared,
frowning. "Denyin' a little chile all his innercent pleasures fo' de
sake ob scrapin' a few censes togedder!" he exclaimed severely.

Jessie laughed, with a suspicious little catch in her voice; it was
hard to be misunderstood, if only by blundering, faithful old Joe. "I
really must not spare time to go with him, Joe," she said in
self-defense, "but perhaps Leslie had better go. It will do you good,
dear," she added, mindful of my inexplicable paleness on the preceding
day.

"I don't need being done good to, Jessie, but evidently Ralph does, so
I'll take him out," I said, while old Joe nodded approving