ll a great mystery. When you an' I go to heaven it won't be
any greater change for us than this change for Flaxen--every face
strange, every spot new."

"Wal, she ain't far away but we can look out for her. She ain't poor
n'r fatherless as long as we live, hey?"

And then silence fell on them. As they were jogging homeward they saw
the gray gulls rise from the sod and go home to the lake for the night.
They heard the crickets' evening chorus broaden and deepen to an
endless and monotonous symphony, while behind fantastic, thin, and
rainless clouds the sun sank in unspeakable glory of colour. The air,
perfectly still, was cool almost to frostiness, and, far above, the
fair stars broke from the lilac and gold of the sun-flushed sky. Lights
in the farm-houses began to appear.

Once or twice Anson said: "She's about at Summit now. I hope she's
chirked up."

They met threshing-crews going noisily home to supper. Once they met an
"outfit," engine, tank, separator, all moving along like a train of
cars, while every few minutes the red light from the furnace gleamed on
the man who was stuffing the straw into the furnace-door, bringing out
his face so plainly that they knew him. As the night grew deeper, an
occasional owl flapped across the fields in search of mice.

"We're bound to miss her like thunder, Bert; no two ways about that.
Can't help but miss her on the cookin', hey?"

Bert nodded without looking up. As they came in sight of home at last,
and saw the house silhouetted against the faintly yellow sky, Ans said
with a sigh:

"No light an' no singin' there to-night."

CHAPTER IX.

"BACHING" IT AGAIN.

"The fact is, Flaxen has sp'iled us," laughed Anson, a couple of days
later, when Bert was cursing the soggy biscuit. "We've got so
high-toned that we can't stand common cookin'. Time was we'd 'a'
thought ourselves lucky to git as good as that. Rec'lect them flapjacks
we ust to make? By mighty! you could shoe a horse with 'em. Say, I wish
I could jest slip in an' see what she's a-doin' about now, hey?"

"She's probably writin' a letter. She won't do much of anythin' else
for the first week."

"I hope you're right," said Anson.

They got a queer little letter every Wednesday, each one for several
weeks pitifully like the others.

Dear boys i thought i would take my pen in hand to tell you i dont
like it one bit the school is just as mene as it can be the girls
do laugh at me they call m