h some women like
to litter the room.

"Most folks," Jim explained, "have to be content with one fire, and sit
in the kitchen; but I thought, as this was our honeymoon, we would put
on some lugs."

Annie said nothing then; but a day or two after she ventured,--

"Perhaps it would be as well now, dear, if we kept in the kitchen. I'll
keep it as bright and pleasant as I can. And, anyway, you can be more
about with me when I'm working then. We'll lay a fire in the front-room
stove, so that we can light it if anybody comes. We can just as well
save that much."

Jim looked up brightly. "All right," he said. "You're a sensible little
woman. You see, every cent makes a difference. And I want to be able to
pay off five hundred dollars of that mortgage this year."

So, after that, they sat in the kitchen; and the fire was laid in the
front room, against the coming of company. But no one came, and it
remained unlighted.

Then the season began to show signs of opening,--bleak signs, hardly
recognizable to Annie; and after that Jim was not much in the house.
The weeks wore on, and spring came at last, dancing over the hills. The
ground-birds began building, and at four each morning awoke Annie with
their sylvan opera. The creek that ran just at the north of the house
worked itself into a fury and blustered along with much noise toward
the great Platte which, miles away, wallowed in its vast sandy bed. The
hills flushed from brown to yellow, and from mottled green to intensest
emerald, and in the superb air all the winds of heaven seemed to meet
and frolic with laughter and song.

Sometimes the mornings were so beautiful that, the men being afield and
Annie all alone, she gave herself up to an ecstasy and kneeled by the
little wooden bench outside the door, to say, "Father, I thank Thee,"
and then went about her work with all the poem of nature rhyming itself
over and over in her heart.

It was on such a day as this that Mrs. Dundy kept her promise and came
over to see if the young housekeeper needed any of the advice she
had promised her. She had walked, because none of the horses could be
spared. It had got so warm now that the fire in the kitchen heated
the whole house sufficiently, and Annie had the rooms clean to
exquisiteness. Mrs. Dundy looked about with envious eyes.

"How lovely!" she said.

"Do you think so?" cried Annie, in surprise. "I like it, of course,
because it is home, but I don't see how you could cal