n the hill and
surrounded the cabin.

The Harvester finished long days in the dry-house and store-room, and
after supper he sat by the fire reading over the Girl's letters, carving
on her candlesticks, or in the work room, bending above the boards he
was shaving and polishing for a gift he had planned for her Christmas.
The Careys had him in their home for Thanksgiving. He told them all
about sending the Girl away himself, read them some of her letters, and
they talked with perfect confidence of how soon she would come home.
The Harvester tried to think confidently, but as the days went by the
letters became fewer, always with the excuse that there was no time to
write, but with loving assurance that she was thinking of him and would
do better soon.

However they came often enough that he had something new to tell his
friends so that they did not suspect that waiting was a trial to him. A
few days after Thanksgiving the gift that he had planned was finished.
It was a big, burl-maple box, designed after the hope chests that he saw
advertised in magazines. The wood was rare, cut in heavy slabs, polished
inside and out, dove-tailed corners with ornate brass bindings, hinges
and lock, and hand-carved feet. On the inside of the lid cut on a brass
plate was the inscription, "Ruth Langston, Christmas of Nineteen Hundred
and Ten. David."

Then he began packing the chest. He put in the finished candlesticks
and a box of candleberry dips he had made of delightfully spiced wax,
coloured pale green. He ordered the doll weeks before from the largest
store in Onabasha, and the dealer brought on several that he might make
a selection. He chose a large baby doll almost life size, and sent it
to the dress-making department to be completely and exquisitely clothed.
Long before the day he was picking kernels to glaze from nuts, drying
corn to pop, and planning candies to be made of maple sugar. When he
figured it was time to start the box, he worked carefully, filling
spaces with chestnut and hazel burs, and finishing the tops of
boxes with gaudy red and yellow leaves he had kept in their original
brightness by packing them in sand. He put in scarlet berries of
mountain ash and long twining sprays of yellow and red bitter-sweet
berries, for her room. Then he carefully covered the chest with cloth,
packed it in an outside box, and sent it to the Girl by express. As he
came from the train shed, where he had helped with loading, he met He