re she is,
huntin' for somethin' to cook with; no stove nor no dishes nor
nothin'--everything all broke up. I reckon she'll be mighty glad
to see you comin'."

Heavy footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Mahailey whispered
hastily, "Don't forgit about the coal-oil, and don't you be lousy
if you can help it, honey." She considered lice in the same class
with smutty jokes,--things to be whispered about.

After breakfast Mr. Wheeler took Claude out to the fields, where
Ralph was directing the harvesters. They watched the binder for a
while, then went over to look at the haystacks and alfalfa, and
walked along the edge of the cornfield, where they examined the
young ears. Mr. Wheeler explained and exhibited the farm to
Claude as if he were a stranger; the boy had a curious feeling of
being now formally introduced to these acres on which he had
worked every summer since he was big enough to carry water to the
harvesters. His father told him how much land they owned, and how
much it was worth, and that it was unencumbered except for a
trifling mortgage he had given on one quarter when he took over
the Colorado ranch.

"When you come back," he said, "you and Ralph won't have to hunt
around to get into business. You'll both be well fixed. Now you'd
better go home by old man Dawson's and drop in to see Susie.
Everybody about here was astonished when Leonard went." He walked
with Claude to the corner where the Dawson land met his own. "By
the way," he said as he turned back, "don't forget to go in to
see the Yoeders sometime. Gus is pretty sore since they had him
up in court. Ask for the old grandmother. You remember she never
learned any English. And now they've told her it's dangerous to
talk German, she don't talk at all and hides away from everybody.
If I go by early in the morning, when she's out weeding the
garden, she runs and squats down in the gooseberry bushes till
I'm out of sight."

Claude decided he would go to the Yoeders' today, and to the
Dawsons' tomorrow. He didn't like to think there might be hard
feeling toward him in a house where he had had so many good
times, and where he had often found a refuge when things were
dull at home. The Yoeder boys had a music-box long before the
days of Victrolas, and a magic lantern, and the old grandmother
made wonderful shadow-pictures on a sheet, and told stories about
them. She used to turn the map of Europe upside down on the
kitchen table and showed the children ho