have them go. I don't want anybody to be between us; and
I want to go back to just the way we we'e befo'e they came. It's been a
strain on you, and now you must throw it all off and rest, and get up
your strength. One thing, I could see that fatha noticed the gain you had
made since he saw you in New Yo'k. He spoke about it to me the fust
thing, and he feels just the way I do about it. He don't want you to
hurry and get well, but take it slowly, and not excite yourself. He
believes in your gleaner, and he knows all about machinery. He says the
patent makes it puffectly safe, and you can take your own time about
pushing it; it's su'a to go. And motha liked you. She's not one to talk a
great deal--she always leaves that to father and me--but she's got deep
feelings, and she just worshipped the baby! I neva saw her take a child
in her ahms before; but she seemed to want to hold the baby all the
time." She stopped, and then added, tenderly, "Now, I know what you ah'
thinking about, Geo'ge, and I don't want you to think about it any more.
If you do, I shall give up."

They had come to a bad piece of road where a Slough of thick mud forced
the wagon-way over the stumps of a turnout in the woods. "You had better
let me have the reins, Clementina," he said. He drove home over the
yellow leaves of the hickories and the crimson leaves of the maples, that
heavy with the morning dew, fell slanting through the still air; and on
the way he began to sing; his singing made her heart ache. His father
came out to put up the colt for him; and Hinkle would not have his help.

He unhitched the colt himself, while his father trembled by with bent
knees; he clapped the colt on the haunch and started him through the
pasture-bars with a gay shout, and then put his arm round Clementina's
waist, and walked her into the kitchen amidst the grins of his mother and
sisters, who said he ought to be ashamed.

The winter passed, and in the spring he was not so well as he had been in
the fall. It was the out-door life which was best for him, and he picked
up again in the summer. When another autumn came, it was thought best for
him not to risk the confinement of another winter in the North. The
prolongation of the summer in the South would complete his cure, and
Clementina took her baby and went with him to Florida. He was very well,
there, and courageous letters came to Middlemount and Ohio, boasting of
the gains he had made. One day toward spring he c