tter gather the plants for a while at least."

"Collecting crude drug material is not easy," said the Harvester.
"Drawing may not be either, but at least you could sit while you work,
and it should bring you more money. Besides, I very much want a moth
copied for a candlestick I am carving. Won't you draw that for me? I
have some pupae cases and the moths will be out any day now. If I'd
bring you one, wouldn't you just make a copy?"

The Girl gripped her hands together and stared straight ahead of her for
a second, then she turned to him.

"I'd like to," she said, "but I have nothing to work with. In Chicago
they furnished my material at the shop and I drew the design and was
paid for the pattern. I didn't know there would be a chance for anything
like that here. I haven't even proper pencils."

"Then the way for you to do this is to strip the first mullein plants
you see of the petals. I will pay you seventy-five cents a pound for
them. By the time you get a few pounds I can have material you need
for drawing here and you can go to work on whatever flowers, vines, and
things you can find in the woods, with no thanks to any one."

"I can't see that," said the Girl. "It would appear to me that I would
be under more obligations than I could repay, and to a stranger."

"I figure it this way," said the Harvester, watching from the corner
of his eye. "I can sell at good prices all the mullein flowers I can
secure. You collect for me, I buy them. You can use drawing tools; I
get them for you, and you pay me with the mullein or out of the ginseng
money I owe you. You already have that coming, and it's just as much
yours as it will be ten days from now. You needn't hesitate a second
about drawing on it, because I am in a hurry for the moth pattern.
I find time to carve only at night, you see. As for being under
obligations to a stranger, in the first place all the debt would be on
my side. I'd get the drugs and the pattern I want; and, in the second
place, I positively and emphatically refuse to be a stranger. It would
be so much better to be mutual helpers and friends of the kind worth
having; and the sooner we begin, the sooner we can work together to
good advantage. Get that stranger idea out of your head right now, and
replace it with thoughts of a new friend, who is willing"--the Harvester
detected panic in her eyes and ended casually--"to enter a partnership
that will be of benefit to both of us. Partners can't be st