ife."

"When she needs it," said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his
head and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. "Do you
remember the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress,
and Aunt Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren't you mad!
You had both hands full of cherries, and I squeezed 'em and made the
juice fly all over you. I liked to have fun with you; you'd get so
mad."

"We _did_ have fun, didn't we? None of the other kids ever had so
much fun. We knew how to play."

Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at
her. "I've played with lots of girls since, but I haven't found one
who was such good fun."

Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face,
and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like
the yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. "Can you still
play, or are you only pretending?"

"I can play better than I used to, and harder."

"Don't you ever work, then?" She had not intended to say it. It
slipped out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong
thing.

"I work between times." Nils' steady gaze still beat upon her.
"Don't you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You're getting like
all the rest of them." He reached his brown, warm hand across the
table and dropped it on Clara's, which was cold as an icicle. "Last
call for play, Mrs. Ericson!" Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands
and cheeks grew warm. Her fingers lingered in his a moment, and they
looked at each other earnestly. Joe Vavrika had put the mouth of the
bottle to his lips and was swallowing the last drops of the Tokai,
standing. The sun, just about to sink behind his shop, glistened on
the bright glass, on his flushed face and curly yellow hair. "Look,"
Clara whispered; "that's the way I want to grow old."

VI

On the day of Olaf Ericson's barn-raising, his wife, for once in a
way, rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying
and boiling and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not
until the day before the party was to take place that Clara showed
any interest in it. Then she was seized with one of her fitful
spasms of energy, and took the wagon and little Eric and spent the
day on Plum Creek, gathering vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate
the barn.

By four o'clock in the afternoon buggies and wagons began to arrive
at the big unpainted building in front of Olaf's house.