; and at breakfast I was
studying out ways to organize it better,--when a small hand pushed a cup
of coffee past my cheek, and gave my nose a little pinch as it was drawn
back. I looked up, and there was Rowena, waiting on our table!

"Hello, Jake!" said she. "I heared you was dead."

"Hello, Rowena," I answered. "I'm just breathin' my last!"

All the hands began yelling at us.

"No sparkin' here!"

"None o' them love pinches, Rowena!"

"I swan to man if that Dutchman ain't cuttin' us all out!"

"Quit courtin' an' pass them molasses, sweetness!"

"Mo' po'k an' less honey, thar!"--this from a Missourian.

"Magnus, your pardner's cuttin' you out!"

I do not need to say that all this hectoring from a lot of men who were
most of them strangers, almost put me under the table; but Rowena,
tossing her head, sent them back their change, with smiles for
everybody. She was as pretty a twenty-year-old lass as you would see in
a day's travel. No longer was she the ragged waif to whom I had given
the dress pattern back toward Dubuque. She was rosy, she was plump, her
new calico dress was as pretty as it could be, and her brown skin and
browner hair made with her dark eyes a study in brown and pink, as the
artists say.

It was two or three days before I had a chance to talk with her. She had
changed a good deal, I sensed, as she told me all about her folks. Old
Man Fewkes was working in the vegetable garden. Celebrate was running a
team. Surajah was working on the machinery. Ma Fewkes was keeping house
for the family in a little cottage in the corner of the garden. I went
over and had a talk with them. Ma Fewkes, with her shoulder-blades
almost touching, assured me that they were in clover.

"I feel sure," said she, "that Celebrate Fourth will soon git something
better to do than make a hand in the field. He has idees of makin' all
kinds of money, if he could git Mr. Gowdy to lis'en to him. But
Surrager Dowler is right where he orto be. He has got a patent
corn-planter all worked out, and I guess Mr. Gowdy'll help him make and
sell it. Mr. Gowdy is awful good to us--ain't he, Rowena."

Rowena busied herself with her work; and when Mrs. Fewkes repeated her
appeal, the girl looked out of the window and paused a long time before
she answered,

"Good enough," she finally said. "But I guess he ain't strainin' himself
any to make something of us."

There was something strange and covered up in what she said, and in the
w