dropped her gaze presently to her hands, which were twisting the
switch in her lap.

"I'll stop if you will," he repeated.

"I'll try, Chris," she said, but she did not look up.

"Gimme yo' hand."

Across St. Hilda's lap she stretched one shaking hand, which the
boy clasped.

"Put yo' hand on thar, too, Miss Hildy," he said, and when he felt
the pressure of her big, strong, white hand for a moment he got up
quickly and turned his face.

"All right, mammy."

St. Hilda rose, too, and started for the house--her eyes so blurred
that she could hardly see the path. Midway she wheeled.

"Don't!" she cried.

The mother was already on her way home, breaking the switch to pieces
and hiding her face within the black sunbonnet. The boy was staring
after her.

THE LORD'S OWN LEVEL

The blacksmith-shop sat huddled by the roadside at the mouth of
Wolf Run--a hut of blackened boards. The rooftree sagged from
each gable down to the crazy chimney in the centre, and the smoke
curled up between the clapboard shingles or, as the wind listed, out
through the cracks of any wall. It was a bird-singing, light-flashing
morning in spring, and Lum Chapman did things that would have set all
Happy Valley to wondering. A bareheaded, yellow-haired girl rode down
Wolf Run on an old nag. She was perched on a sack of corn, and she gave
Lum a shy "how-dye" when she saw him through the wide door. Lum's great
forearm eased, the bellows flattened with a long, slow wheeze, and he
went to the door and looked after her. Professionally he noted that one
hind shoe of the old nag was loose and that the other was gone. Then he
went back to his work. It would not be a busy day with Uncle Jerry at
the mill--there would not be more than one or two ahead of her and her
meal would soon be ground. Several times he quit work to go to the door
and look down the road, and finally he saw her coming. Again she gave
him a shy "how-dye," and his eyes followed her up Wolf Run until she
was out of sight.

The miracle these simple acts would have been to others was none to him.
He was hardly self-conscious, much less analytical, and he went back to
his work again.

A little way up that creek Lum himself lived in a log cabin, and he
lived alone. This in itself was as rare as a miracle in the hills,
and the reason, while clear, was still a mystery: Lum had never been
known to look twice at the same woman. He was big, kind, taciturn,
ox-eyed, calm. He was