ny pocket mirror he always
carried.

"A whole bunch of daisies, indeed. But isn't it jolly? I never did so
much hard work in my life; my hands are all blistered and sore, my feet
ache--whew! And I never, never was so happy."

Fayette paused midway to the shed, which he had repaired with bits of
boards, begged or offered in various sources. The whitewash brush over
his shoulder dripped a milky fluid upon his bared head, and
occasionally a drop trickled as far as the corner of his capacious
mouth.

But he minded nothing so trivial as this, and he stared at Amy in the
same wonderment with which he had regarded her from the beginning of
their acquaintance. She also paused and returned his gaze with an amused
scrutiny.

"Fayette, that stare of yours is getting chronic. I wish you'd give it
up. Everything I do or say seems to astonish you. What's the matter with
me? Am I not like other girls? You must know many down at the mill."

"No, you ain't."

"How different? I'd really like to know."

"Ain't seen you cry once,--or not more 'n once," he corrected
truthfully. "An' you left all them things up there, an' the trees, an'
the posies, an' everything like that way."

For one moment Amy's breast heaved and her voice choked. Then she jerked
her head in a fashion she had when she wished to throw aside unpleasant
things and replied:--

"What would be the use of crying? If it would bring them all back, I'd
cry a bath-tub full. But it won't. Thinking about it only makes it
worse. _It had to be_, and in some ways I'm thankful it did. It was all
unreal and dreamlike up there. I knew nothing about the sorrows and
hardships in the real world. But how I am talking! I wonder, do you
understand at all what I have said?"

"I couldn't help cryin' when the bluebird's nest fell an' smashed all
the eggs," remarked Fayette, whimpering at the recollection. His words
were "like a bit of blue sky, showing through a cloud," as the girl
often expressed it, when the untaught lad revealed something of his
intense love of nature, so strongly in contrast to his otherwise limited
intelligence.

"Well, we must forget what's past and go to work. I'll tether the burros
out of the roadside while you clean up their shed; and when they come
back to find it all sweet and white, like Pepita herself, they'll be as
pleased as Punch. Wonder we never thought of having the old stable at
Fairacres whitewashed."

"Didn't have me, then," answered the lad.