t mention Kendall in
some innocent fashion among the other boys and girls who took part in
the sleigh-rides, parties, and sociables. But the morbidly acute Bert,
if he saw, said nothing, and Anson did not see.

"Who d' y' s'pose this Kendall is?" asked Anson, one night late in the
winter, of Gearheart, who was reading the paper while his companion
reread a letter from Flaxen. "Seems to me she's writin' a good 'eal
about him lately."

"Oh, some slick little dry-goods clerk or druggist," said Bert, with
unwarrantable irritation.

"She seems to have a good 'eal to say about him, anyway," repeated
Anson, in a meditative way.

"Oh, that's natural enough. They are two young folks together," replied
Bert, with a careless accent, to remove any suspicion which his hasty
utterance might have raised in Anson's mind.

"Wal, I guess you're right," agreed Anson, after a pause, relieved.
This relief was made complete when in other letters which came she said
less and less about Kendall. If they had been more experienced, they
would have been disturbed by this suspicious fact.

Then again, when Anson wrote asking "What has become of that Kendall
you wrote so much about?" she replied that he was there, and began
writing of him again in a careless sort of way, with the craft of woman
already manifest in the change of front.

Spring came again, and that ever-recurring miracle, the good green
grass, sprang forth from its covering of ice and snow, up from its
hiding-place in the dark, cold sod.

Again the two men set to work ferociously at the seeding. Up early in
the wide, sweet dawn, toiling through the day behind harrow and seeder,
coming in at noon to a poor and badly cooked meal, hurrying back to the
field and working till night, coming in at sundown so tired that one
leg could hardly be dragged by the other--this was their daily life.

One day, as they were eating their supper of sour bread and canned
beans, Gearheart irritatedly broke out: "Ans, why don't you git
married? It 'u'd simplify matters a good 'eal if you should. 'Old Russ'
is no good."

"What's the matter with _your_ gittin' married?" replied Anson,
imperturbably pinching oil the cooked part of the loaf, skilfully
leaving the doughy part.

"I ain't on the marry; that's all."

"Neither am I."

"Well, you ought to be."

"Don't see it."

"Well, now, let me show it. We can't go on this way. I'm gittin' so
poor you can count my ribs through my shirt. Jest t