th them and give you up, even if I cared
greatly for you; but he said what I felt was not love at all. Then he
tried to tell me what he thought love was, and I could see very clearly
that if it was like that, I didn't love you, but I came a whole world
closer it than loving him, and I told him so. He laughed again and said
I was mistaken, and that he was going to teach me what real love was,
and then I could not be driven back to you. After that, everybody and
everything just pushed me toward him with both hands, except one person.
She was a young married woman and I met her at the very first. She
was the only real friend I ever had, and at last, the latter part of
February, when things were the very worst, I told her. I told her every
single thing. She was on your side. She said you were twice the man
Herbert Kennedy was, and as soon as I found I could talk to her about
you, I began going there and staying as long as I could, just to talk
and to play with her baby.

"Her husband was a splendid young fellow, and I grew very fond of him.
I knew she had told him, because he suddenly began talking to me in the
kindest way, and everything he said seemed to be what I most wanted to
hear. I got along fairly well until hints of spring began to come, and
then I would wonder about my hedge, and my gold garden, and if the ice
was off the lake, and about my boat and horse, and I wanted my room,
and oh, David, most of all I wanted you! Just you! Not because you
could give me anything to compare in richness with what they could, not
because this home was the best I'd ever known except theirs, not for any
reason at all only just that I wanted to see your face, hear your voice,
and have you pick me up and take me in your arms when I was tired. That
was when I almost quit writing. I couldn't say what I wanted to, and I
wouldn't write trivial things, so I went on day after day just groping."

"And you killed me alive," said the Harvester.

"I was afraid of that, but I couldn't write. I just couldn't! It was ten
days ago that I thought of the bluebird's coming this year and what it
would mean to you, and THAT killed me, Man! It just hurt my heart
until it ached, to know that you were out here alone; and that night I
couldn't sleep, because I was thinking of you, and it came to me that if
I had your lips then I could give you a much, much better kiss than the
last, and when it was light I wrote that line.

"Nearly a week later I got yo