g
past one of the neighbours on my way to see about some work I want her
to do."

The Harvester stopped for lunch, carried food to Belshazzar, and started
straight across country, his mattock, with a bag rolled around the
handle, on his shoulder. His feet sank in the damp earth at the foot of
the hill, and he laughed as he leaped across Singing Water.

"You noisy chatterbox!" cried the man. "The impetus of coming down the
curves of the hill keeps you talking all the way across this muck bed to
the lake. With small work I can make you a thing of beauty. A few bushes
grubbed, a little deepening where you spread too much, and some more
mallows along the banks will do the trick. I must attend to you soon."

"Now what does the boy want?" laughed a white-haired old woman, as the
Harvester entered the door. "Mebby you think I don't know what you're
up to! I even can hear the hammering and the voices of the men when the
wind is in the south. I've been wondering how soon you'd need me. Out
with it!"

"I want you to get a woman and come over and spend a day with me.
I'll come after you and bring you back. I want you to go over mother's
bedding and have what needs it washed. All I want you to do is to
superintend, and tell me now what I will want from town for your work."

"I put away all your mother's bedding that you were not using, clean as
a ribbon."

"But it has been packed in moth preventives ever since and out only four
times a year to air, as you told me. It must smell musty and be yellow.
I want it fresh and clean."

"So what I been hearing is true, David?"

"Quite true!" said the Harvester.

"Whose girl is she, and when are you going to jine hands?"

The Harvester lifted his clear eyes and hesitated.

"Doc Carey laid you in my arms when you was born, David. I tended you
'fore ever your ma did. All your life you've been my boy, and I love you
same as my own blood; it won't go no farther if you say so. I'll never
tell a living soul. But I'm old and 'til better weather comes, house
bound; and I get mighty lonely. I'd like to think about you and her, and
plan for you, and love her as I always did you folks. Who is she, David?
Do I know the family?"

"No. She is a stranger to these parts," said the unhappy Harvester.

"David, is she a nice girl 'at your ma would have liked?"

"She's the only girl in the world that I'd marry," said the Harvester
promptly, glad of a question he could answer heartily. "Yes. She