hat grass is
musterin' its forces every minute I'm away."

I worried through the day, saw Guinea in a haze, heard her voice afar
off, and at night I went to bed worn out and limp. Alf did not come up
until some time after I lay down. He came softly whistling a doleful air
to prove that his sympathies were with me, sat down upon the edge of my
bed and remained there a long time motionless and silent. I knew not
what to say to him and he was evidently puzzled as to what he ought to
say to me. Out of the fullness of the heart the mouth may speak, but out
of the heart's fullness there also flows a silence.

"Bill," he said, reaching over and turning down the light which I had
left brightly burning, "I killed a snake to-day that I reckon must be
six feet long. Came crawling across the field as if he had important
business over in the woods, but he didn't get there. Ever kill many big
snakes?"

"Not very many," I answered, "but I am well acquainted with them and I
have been bitten by a big snake that lies coiled about the universe,
striking at a heart whenever he sees it."

He got up, blew out the low blaze of the lamp, and sat down on his own
bed, I could tell from the creaking of the slats; and after a time he
said something about the gridiron on which a man was compelled to
wallow. Ordinarily I would have laughed, hot ashes on the father and hot
coals under the son, but now I sighed deeply.

"Bill, you know, the other day I said that there was something in my
favor, an outgrowth of my sister's education. A family union, don't you
see? But I had no idea when I said it that this very thing would put the
fire under a man that has stood by me. I'm awfully sorry that things had
to be shaped that way. You know what I mean; father told you all about
it. Is it bad, Bill? I won't say a word about it and the old folks don't
suspect a thing, but do you love her much? Tell me just as if she wasn't
any kin to me."

"Did the martyrs who stood in the fire love their God?" I asked.

He sighed. "She's got you, Bill. The time has been so short that I
didn't think it could be so bad, but love doesn't look at the clock nor
keep a calendar. Are you going to try to keep on living, Bill?"

"Yes, I'm going to study law when I get through with this school, and
I'm going to make the law of divorce a specialty. If I can't do I may
undo; I'm going to be a wolf, and whenever I see a man aiming a gun at
another man, I'm not going to catch the