have her for a
daughter-in-law than a wife, by a long shot. Claude's more of a
fool than I thought him." He picked up his hat and strolled down
to the barn, but his wife did not recover her composure so
easily. She left the chair where she had hopefully settled
herself for comfort, took up a feather duster and began moving
distractedly about the room, brushing the surface of the
furniture. When the war news was bad, or when she felt troubled
about Claude, she set to cleaning house or overhauling the
closets, thankful to be able to put some little thing to rights
in such a disordered world.

As soon as the fall planting was done, Claude got the well borers
out from town to drill his new well, and while they were at work
he began digging his cellar. He was building his house on the
level stretch beside his father's timber claim because, when he
was a little boy, he had thought that grove of trees the most
beautiful spot in the world. It was a square of about thirty
acres, set out in ash and box-elder and cotton-woods, with a
thick mulberry hedge on the south side. The trees had been
neglected of late years, but if he lived up there he could manage
to trim them and care for them at odd moments.

Every morning now he ran up in the Ford and worked at his cellar.
He had heard that the deeper a cellar was, the better it was; and
he meant that this one should be deep enough. One day Leonard
Dawson stopped to see what progress he was making. Standing on
the edge of the hole, he shouted to the lad who was sweating
below.

"My God, Claude, what do you want of a cellar as deep as that?
When your wife takes a notion to go to China, you can open a
trap-door and drop her through!"

Claude flung down his pick and ran up the ladder. "Enid's not
going to have notions of that sort," he said wrathfully.

"Well, you needn't get mad. I'm glad to hear it. I was sorry when
the other girl went. It always looked to me like Enid had her face
set for China, but I haven't seen her for a good while,--not
since before she went off to Michigan with the old lady."

After Leonard was gone, Claude returned to his work, still out of
humour. He was not altogether happy in his mind about Enid. When
he went down to the mill it was usually Mr. Royce, not Enid, who
sought to detain him, followed him down the path to the gate and
seemed sorry to see him go. He could not blame Enid with any lack
of interest in what he was doing. She talked and thought