After folding the note carefully, and putting it back in the envelope from which he had taken it, he inquired:—

“What do you think of it?”

Knowing Barker had suggested it, and probably dictated the words, I said it was neat and appropriate, and the best thing that could be done under the circumstances, for I had no opinion of my own on the delicate question.

“It won’t be long, Jo,” I answered, and feeling that what I said was true.

“Barker says he can teach me all he knows in half a year. After that, I will experiment for myself, and perhaps I may be able to discover something which will repay him for his kindness to me. If I am apt at anything—which I sometimes doubt—it is with machinery, and there is so little of it at Barker’s that I hope I will be able to master it all in a few months. I am familiar with all of it now, and I shall work very hard until I can take it all apart, and put it together again better than it was before.”

We were both quiet a long while, busy with our own thoughts, until Jo said:—

“I am going away to-morrow. When are you coming to see me?”

I had it in my mind to say, “On Tuesday,” but as that would be the next day after his departure, and impossible, I said instead that I would come as soon as I could; certainly not later than that day a week.

“I shall be very busy, and lonely, too, and I hope you will come often. You haven’t been out of my sight more than a day at a time since you were born, and you are the only brother I ever had. I don’t intend to come here much, and as you enjoy visiting at Barker’s we will arrange it in that way. They will perhaps tolerate me here once in a long while, to see if I have cut off any of my fingers in the cog-wheels, but for no other reason. I have been an intruder ever since I can remember, and lonely and homeless.”

“Your mother has been kinder to me than any of them, if I except Agnes, who is the friend of every one, but her health has always been poor, and she has a great deal to do. She often comes into my room at night, if she suspects that I am not well, and asks if she can do anything for me; but I know she is always tired, and I feel more like helping her than allowing her to help me. I shall always remember her gratefully for it, and believe that were she less unhappy herself we would have been a different family.”

The mention of Agnes reminded me that she had presented me with her father’s picture, and taking it from my pocket I gave it to Jo, but he did not care to look at it then, and said he would take it, and give it back at some future time.

“‘Since six o’clock,’ she said to me, ‘my husband has not changed his position, or spoken. It is his habit every night. He is always thinking, and always silent and discontented. If I knew what his trouble is, perhaps I could help him, as I am anxious to do, but he will not tell me (though I do not ask him, for I am afraid). He thinks all day at his work, you have told me, and I believe he thinks all night, for I have known him to get up at midnight, and walk the floor until day. He is always considerate of me, and never speaks unkindly, but he has never been my husband except in name, and the fear that I have done something to offend him makes me very wretched, for I have always tried to be all that he desired. There is something dreadfully portentous in this; I do not know what it is, but I am certain that it will finally make us very miserable.

“‘I have never spoken of this before; I never intend to speak of it again, and I only mention it now because I feel that I can live but a few years longer, and I must speak of it to make clear a request I have to make. Ned is out of the house to-night, and farther away from me then ever before since he was born. After you two have gone to sleep here in this room, I always come in to kiss him good-night. And, Jo, I frequently kiss you, too. Since he was a baby in my arms, I have never kissed him except when he was asleep, because his father seemed to dislike such exhibitions of affection. But I come to his bed every night, and kiss him after he has gone to sleep.’

“She cried softly to herself awhile, and remained so quiet that I could hear her tears fall in little plashes to the floor.

“‘I know he regards me as cold-hearted, like his father, but I am not. I love him as every mother loves her only child, but he does not understand it, and lately he avoids me whenever he can.

After wiping away our tears, for the story affected us both to that extent, we resolved over and over again to be more considerate of her in the future, as we now better understood her strange disposition toward us. I do not know that we had ever been more inconsiderate than other boys, but we all seemed to be waiting at our house for an opportunity to get away, and find more pleasant companions, which made us unthoughtful of each other, and I think it was to this she referred in her talk with Jo.

When we went into the house again, my father was sitting in his accustomed place, thinking. He had not changed his position since we went out of the room, an hour or two before, and I think he regretted he could not go out into the fields and lose his thoughts in working. He looked up when we came in, and addressing himself to Jo, said:—

“Are you glad to go?”

“Yes, sir,” Jo promptly responded.

This did not seem to surprise him, and he kept on thinking, as though he might have known it without asking.

When he began thinking again, I thought it was that although he always did that which was for the best, he was blamed for it, and hated.

“I have no advice to give you, because you would take nothing kindly from me, and because I seldom give it to anyone. Every man must advise himself, after he is convinced what course he had better pursue. The world is full of people giving good advice to others, but I have thought we should all be better off if we would advise ourselves more, and others less. If I could take the good advice I am capable of giving, I should have no occasion to accept it from others. The same is true in your case; advise yourself, and see that your advice is good. I believe you will succeed over there, and I earnestly hope you will. No more need be said on the subject.”

When he began his thinking again, I thought it was to wonder why Jo should not feel grateful to him now instead of in the future (he was sure he would then), after he was dead, and in need of no evidence that the course he had pursued was right.

. . . . .

She fell on her knees beside the bed, and sobbed in such distress that my father heard her, and came in hurriedly from the other room to inquire what was the matter. But only her sobbing answered him, and speaking to her tenderly, as if divining what had affected her, he led her away, with his arm around her.

A FEW months after the Shepherds came to Fairview, and after they had become fairly settled in their new home (they lived beyond Erring’s Ford, and on the other edge of the timber which began there), a fellow arrived who was thoroughly disliked from the moment of his appearance, because he had an insolent manner, an insolent walk, and was insolent in everything he did, to say nothing of his flashy dress and a general air of impudence. His name was Clinton Bragg, and as he appeared there in company with the Shepherds, it was soon understood that in the country from which they came their families had been intimate and friends. I think he only consented to visit Fairview church on the Sunday of his first appearance, as a geologist consents to enter a dirty pit in the earth, for the satisfaction of seeing curious specimens and formations, and he regarded the people he saw, whom he looked at with a cool stare, as a herd of peculiar beasts or a drove of something.

The people thought a great deal of him, as he was kind and gentle, and preached a religion less rigorous than my father’s had been, and they were useful to him in so many ways that he was greatly pleased with the people and the community, for I think he had never lived in a place before where he was of so much importance. Therefore it was plain that he was annoyed by Bragg’s impertinence, and I thought Mateel and her mother shared the feeling. He sat with them during the services, but went out in a rude way immediately after the preaching was over, giving the people to understand as plainly as he could that he thought them inferior. Through the open door from where I sat I could see him standing out at the gate like an evil spirit, and I could not help thinking that Fairview was progressing, for all sorts of people were coming in. I had never seen a man like this one before, for we knew by his manner that he lived without work.

When the people came out he walked ahead of them, as though fearing he would be trampled upon, and seemed anxious to get away. To this end he unhitched the minister’s horses, and, after turning their heads homeward, sat holding them impatiently, until the family concluded their greetings with those who crowded around them, amusing himself by chewing bits of hay and spitting them out spitefully.

All this I imagined while looking at him, for he said nothing, and when I rode in the seat in front of him (which I did at the invitation of Mateel) I was certain he was frowning all the way, and thinking of me as a fine specimen for a museum. His presence chilled me, as it did all the others, and I said nothing during the ride, fearing he would snap my head off. I felt, too, that, though the others disliked him, they were afraid of his tongue, should he find occasion to use it, and I drove as rapidly as I could to get rid of him.

When he was introduced to Agnes he stared at her with cold surprise, as he would look at a particular animal in a flock driven up for his inspection, should one of them prove finer than he had expected, and Agnes turned and left the room. Mateel soon followed her, and I thought that she went out to apologize for her rude acquaintance. They both remained away until dinner was ready, and I found that they were good-naturedly helping my mother, who was greatly pleased. Indeed, they all deserted Bragg, leaving him alone in the best room a greater part of the time, my father and Mr. Shepherd finding it convenient to examine a lot of young trees lately planted in the orchard.

But Bragg paid not the slightest attention to her, and kept looking out of the window, first at the church, and then at the fields, as though he regretted he could not set them on fire by holding his eyes on them, like a sun-glass. At dinner my grandmother sat next to him, and imposed on him by crowding, and setting everything passed to her as far away as possible, which affronts he pretended not to notice. Although the others were very good-natured at the table, he remained indifferent to everything, eating whatever was offered as though he was surprised to get it in such an out-of-the-way place. I had not yet heard him speak, and began to wonder how it would sound should he finally consent to favor us with a word.

The good humor of the others was probably to show Bragg that his ill-nature was of no consequence, and that he was welcome to his mood, for I had never heard so much laughter in that house before. I was particularly proud of Agnes for the many kind things she managed to say of Fairview, though apparently without reference to Bragg. She was superior to any of them, and I could not help thinking it was to the credit of the country that she had lived there contentedly before they came. Although the dinner to which he sat down was better than he expected, and the people offering to entertain him more intelligent—he could not conceal his occasional surprise—he would not admit it, and maintained his insolent silence. When he went back into the best room, nobody followed, and he remained there undisturbed, except occasionally by my grandmother, who dashed in at intervals to turn up her nose.

I heard Mr. Shepherd say to my father that he was a civil engineer, and would make that his business in Twin Mounds, if he concluded to do anything at all, which was not decided, as his father was rich, and would cheerfully supply him with all he needed.

“He is disagreeable to me, and to my family,” he added, “but I was a boy with his father, and have known Clinton ever since he was born. He has been headstrong and wilful all his life; I sincerely hope his residence here will do him good. I don’t know what his habits are, but I do know that he has always been a source of worry and trouble—at home, at school; everywhere. I think if there is anything in him, it will develop here, for I am unable to understand how any man can remain idle in a country where there is so much room for action. He intends to open an office in town, he says, and if he is competent and industrious there is really no reason why he should not live to make his father proud of him. I believe his mother regards him as the most wonderful young man in the world, as he is.”

My father did not reply, but I am sure he was thinking that Bragg was a very good example of his doctrine that an idle boy invariably grew up into an idle and disagreeable man.

Barker had told Jo and me so much of rich people that I greatly admired them, but I could not believe that Bragg was a fair representative of the class, and I learned afterwards that he was hated at school and at home for his meanness, which was the only quality he cultivated.

While I was looking at him, and thinking I would get Jo to knock him down some day, Mateel and Agnes came around the house with Damon Barker, who had evidently just arrived. He had never met either of them before, but, on encountering them, introduced himself with the easy grace for which he was noted. Both had heard of him, and seemed pleased to see him, for they sat down on each side of him on a rough seat under an apple-tree. I went out to them at once, and he spoke to me in such a considerate way that I was sure it would be noticed that he was my particular friend, which I regarded as a circumstance very much in my favor. He did not treat me as a boy, as the others did, but listened kindly when I was talking, instead of waving me to silence with his hand, and altogether acted as though I was worthy of his respect and friendship.

We all inquired about Jo, who had been away several weeks, and he replied so favorably that he took another step forward in my good opinion. Jo was already the best assistant he had ever had, he said, and was certain to become a remarkable man.

We were all pleased to hear him say this, and, though not intending it, Mateel let it be known that she was greatly interested in Jo. I hoped Barker would notice it, and tell him, for it would be a pleasure for him to know it.

“A boy apprenticed on a farm has very little opportunity to learn anything—I wonder that he knows as much as he does; but he is progressive and manly, and I am very much mistaken if his advancement is not very rapid from now on. He wants to know about everything, and I really believe he could run the mill very well without me now. He was familiar with every part of it before he came there to live, and I suppose he is busy to-day taking the machinery apart to look at it, since I am not there to answer his questions regarding the contents of the books.”

Barker seemed to understand that Jo had never been appreciated in Fairview, and was determined that the people should know he was very favorably impressed with him. I thought it was very kind of him to come so far to defend Jo.

She replied very much as a polite woman should—that while it was not possible that she could positively say on so short an acquaintance, she believed she would become entirely content with it in time.

“I have lived here contentedly enough a good many years,” Barker replied, “with few acquaintances and fewer friends. The country is very fair. I know little enough of the people, but no one is crowded here. There is room enough for everybody, and there are splendid opportunities to be let alone. There is a good deal in that.”

In her dependent, uncertain way, Mateel looked as though it were possible to be let alone too much, although she said nothing.

“I take it that people do not come west for society, but rather because there are more acres than people in this direction,” Barker said. “I have been told that it is possible to get too much of society, and that after it quiet is appreciated. To this class Fairview will prove a satisfactory place. My nearest neighbor lives two miles away; I shouldn’t care if he lived ten. He is an ignorant fellow, who chops wood for a living; and he is very considerate, for he never comes to see me. I think I never spoke to my neighbor except to ask him how much was my debt. We get along very well. Who is the young man at the window?” noticing Bragg, who had changed his position and was looking at the sky.

I replied that he was a friend of Mr. Shepherd’s, and that he had only arrived a few days before.

I was afraid that this might offend Mateel, but after seeing that Bragg had not heard it she laughed over it, as did the rest of us. She added, however, that he was in excellent health, and that he was more moody than sullen, and could be very agreeable when he wanted to be.

“I judge he has had too much of society, and enjoys the quiet of Fairview. He looks pleasant.”

I will swear that Bragg’s face was the most unpleasant and disagreeable at that moment I had ever seen.

“He should visit the mill for quiet. We have no noise there except the roar of the water and the rumble of the wheels, and we have grown so accustomed to these that it would not be quiet without them. I hope he will like the country.”

At this moment my father and Mr. Shepherd came around from the orchard, and Barker bowed low on being presented. I thought Mr. Shepherd regretted he had not known Barker was so polite, as he could have shown something in that line himself; but they got on very well together, and were soon talking like old friends. We sat there for an hour or more, listening to their easy and cultured conversation, and it occurred to me, with renewed force, that Fairview was getting out of its old ways. Mr. Shepherd promised to visit him, the invitation having been extended, and my mother and the minister’s wife coming out later the party was so agreeable that I wondered we could not have more of it instead of the discontent which usually oppressed us. Hearing our peals of laughter, I hoped Bragg regretted he had not been in better humor and joined the company; but he never looked that way, and pretended to be occupied with himself.

“I will walk on with Ned,” Barker replied, good-naturedly, and rising, “and think of it after I reach the cross roads; I see it is almost time to start.”

After taking his leave of all of them in a courteous way, I walked with him along the path leading across the field, my father excusing me from further attendance for that purpose.

We proceeded quite leisurely, as there was no hurry, and after we had walked a considerable distance my companion said:—

“A very pretty girl, and intelligent enough, but weak. She could be coaxed into anything. They say that is true of all light-haired women.”

I did not know whether he meant Agnes or Mateel, so I inquired, “Who?”

“The one you call Mateel. She has a pretty face, but were I inclined to criticise such a delightful girl I should say she lacks decision. The other one hardly spoke to me. What is it they call her?”

“Agnes.”

“The school-teacher, I believe. She is very much of a woman, though evidently young. I admire her more than the other one. Do her people live here?”

“No; in Smoky Hill.”

“Very respectable, I have no doubt. I should like to know her father, and congratulate him.”

“Her father is dead,” I answered.

“Oh! Dead.”

He walked on in silence for a considerable distance.

“An orphan. It’s a pity.”

By this time we had reached the cross-road, leading in one direction to the church and in the other toward his home. He stopped here, and said:—

“I will not go to the church to-night, if you will be good enough to present my excuse to your father. It is a long road home, and I must walk it. You know that you are always welcome at the mill, and that Jo is anxious to see you. Good-night.”

He turned abruptly on his heel, and, walking away, his form was soon lost in the rapidly approaching darkness.

TWO months had passed since Jo had gone to live at the mill, and on a Saturday afternoon it was arranged that I should visit him, and remain until Monday.

My father was at the country town a great deal of late, and the farm was being neglected in the hands of the renter and his two sons, who I often thought were shiftless men, or they would have owned a farm of their own, for land was cheap and plentiful. When he returned from these visits to Twin Mounds, he was more thoughtful than ever, and after making long rows of figures in his private book, and casting them up, he pondered over the result, as if he had added another problem to the number he was always studying over.

I did not get started until late, and as I rode away my father came out to say that, unless I hurried, night would overtake me in the woods, and as it was the first time in his life he had paid me so much attention, I thought, as I rode along, that Fairview was certainly progressing, and that the old order of things was passing away.

When I arrived at the mill it was long after dark, and, wishing to surprise Jo, I put the horse away alone, as I was familiar with the stables from frequent visits. Seeing no light in the house, I supposed he was at the mill, and went in there, although it was dark, and I should have thought it deserted but for the circumstance that all the machinery was in operation. Hearing some one in the basement, I sat down until he had finished and started up the stairs, when I saw it was Jo, carrying a lantern.

“And so you have come at last,” he said, hanging the lantern on his arm, and taking both my hands in his. “I had almost come to believe that you had forgotten me.”

“I am certain of that,” he returned good-naturedly, using his lantern to look critically at a wheel which I am sure was all right, but he wanted me to know that he was in charge; “I am certain you came as soon as you could, my dear old friend. You, like myself, cannot always do what you please. But now that you have come, you may be quite sure that I am glad to see you, and you could not have arrived at a more favorable time. I am to stay here until midnight, at which time Barker will relieve me, and you shall stay with me and tell me the news.”

“I think it is very much to your credit, Jo,” I said, “that you are able to run alone already.”

“O, it is nothing,” he answered, though I could see he was proud of it. “All I have to do is to look around, and see that the belts are on and that the machinery is running smoothly. The mill runs itself, and if anything should go wrong, I have only to shut down the gate, and call Barker. But nothing is likely to go wrong. Barker is a fine miller, and he has everything so arranged that the water does the work with little assistance. But tell me how much you have missed me again, and everything that has occurred at home since I came away.”

Under the first head I could have talked all night, but there was nothing new except the arrival of Bragg.

I told all I knew about him, and I thought Jo was much interested in the statement that he had been raised at Mateel’s old home, and that they had grown up together.

“He’s impudent, whoever he is; I can say that for him. I thought he wanted to buy me, he looked at me so closely. I suppose Mateel is as pretty as ever.”

I answered that she wonderfully improved on acquaintance, and that, having gone down into the bottom of her trunk, she was better dressed than ever when last I saw her.

“You know that letter of apology to Mateel I read you?” Jo inquired, without paying much attention to my remark.

I said I remembered it very distinctly, but I wondered why he now regarded it so pleasantly, for he was smiling.

“Well, I received an answer to it a day or two after coming here, accompanied by an invitation to visit her, and I don’t mind confessing to you that I went, as I had learned a great deal since I called there the first time with your mother, and was anxious she should know it. In fact, I have been there three times in three weeks. It’s only a short distance to their house from here, and Barker gave me so many lessons in bowing and politeness that I couldn’t resist the temptation to try them.”

“And how did they work?”

“Jo,” I said, “you are very happy here, I can see it already.”

“I confess that I am,” he replied; “more contented than I ever expected to be anywhere. I am useful to Barker (so he is kind enough to say, at least), and he told me to-day that he intends to pay me wages from the time I came, instead of compelling me to work a long while for nothing. Yes, I am very happy here; you have guessed my secret.”

I was heartily glad of it, and said so, and added that no one deserved it more.

“But after all there is nothing like a fairy story in it; nothing unreal, and nothing that is likely to melt away, and leave me a drudge at Fairview again. I am simply in a place where, if I work hard, I shall get something for it. Every one ought to have that opportunity, therefore it is not too much to hope that my good fortune may continue. I should have been as comfortably situated as I am now a good many years ago (no one is so unworthy that he does not deserve pay for what work he does well), but I have learned nothing, and earned nothing, until now, though I am almost a man grown.”

“But I want to talk to you about Mateel; I think a great deal about her. It’s very odd, but it is very true. At home, and at your house, the poorest corner was too good for Jo; with her the best is too poor. I should be very ungrateful did she not occupy my thoughts a great deal. Though she is a lady and I only a rough country boy, she is so considerate of me that I cannot help loving her, though it is very presuming in me, I fear. I feel as though I were visiting a queen when I go there, but she makes me so welcome that I soon forget myself, and imagine I am a king. All of my ambition is connected with her now. If I hope to become a worthy man, and well-to-do, it is that she may be proud of me, and feel that I have worked to please her; if I study Barker’s books diligently by the light of this lantern at night, it is that I may become more intelligent, and worthy of the good opinion she has of me. I dream of nothing pleasant in which she does not have a part. If I fancy I am happy, she is beside me, and the cause of it; if I have grown rich and great in a night, I am only glad of it because it will please Mateel. Always and everywhere, when my better part is uppermost, she is in my thoughts, but never when I am contemptible in any way. There seems to be no doubt, in short, that I am desperately in love.”

I had suspected this for some time, though I pretended to be greatly surprised.

I said she probably knew all about him already, and was satisfied.

“Do you suppose she does?” he inquired with the look of a pleasant hope in his face. “It would be comforting to know that, as it would be humiliating to tell her everything to my discredit I can think of. But if ever I become convinced that she loves me, I will tell her everything if it kills me.”

He talked as though he had been a great criminal in his time, but there was really nothing more serious against him than that his father was an eccentric shingle-maker, and his mother a midwife, if I except the circumstance that everybody said he came of a shiftless family.

As if the thought were disagreeable, he picked up the lantern abruptly, and went down under the mill, leaving me in the dark, and he remained so long that at last I followed. I found him leaning against a heavy timber, looking at the flame in his lantern again, as though it could enlighten him if it would on certain matters of which he was anxious to know more.

“You are becoming as great a thinker as father, Jo,” I said, touching him on the shoulder, for he had been so occupied with his thoughts that he had not noticed my approach. “You used to dislike him very much for that.”

Recollecting himself, he pretended that he had come down to look at something, and after seeing that it was all right, we went up again.

“If I was thinking,” he said good-naturedly, “it was that I had never thought of loving until Mateel came in my way. The possibility that some day I should marry was so remote that I never considered it, and when you came down there just now, I was hoping that if ever I should marry Mateel—I don’t suppose I ever shall; it was only a fancy, and there is no harm in telling it—she would confess to me that thoughts of loving and marrying never came to her until she met me, as I intend to confess to her, and it will be God’s holy truth. I have never even divided my poor affection among my relatives; you have had it all, but I don’t think Mateel would object to that.”

Although he had only been there a short time, I thought Jo had grown to be a man since I had seen him last. He looked larger, and older, and acted and talked more like one than he did two months before, when he was a boy.

I was about to reply, when we heard Barker coming in, as the hour had arrived when he was to take charge, although we had not suspected that midnight was so near at hand, so rapidly had the time passed. Barker greeted me pleasantly, and although I supposed he had just crept out of bed, he was as fresh and cheerful as it was possible to be. While we were walking up to the house I mentioned the circumstance to Jo.

JO and I agreed that we would ride over to his father’s in the forenoon of the next day, and return by way of the Shepherds’ in the evening. We started in the morning before Barker was stirring, as he had worked until daylight, Jo riding the horse he had received from my father together with ten dollars in money, and I a clumsy but reliable animal from the farm, which I believe had assisted in hauling our wagons to the country, and which rode about as comfortable as a wheel-barrow.

When we arrived at the Ford, and as we stopped our horses to allow them to drink, I saw that several loads of stone for the dam had arrived since my last visit there, and Jo told me he intended to haul at least one load a week until he had enough, and that there would occasionally be dull days at Barker’s—as in times of high water, or ice—when he could work on his own enterprise for days at a time.

“She’s not at home,” he said, divining that we wondered where Gran was. “She’s away. But I don’t know where. I never do. Both of you know that already. She has been away—” he rested one hand on his knees, and counted the days on the bricks of the hearth with his walking-stick—“three days. She may be at home in an hour; she may not return in a week. Both of you are familiar with the manner in which she comes and goes.”

I had frequently remarked of my grandfather that while others in Fairview said little because they were gloomy, he said little because he had little to say, and after finishing what I have quoted, he stopped as if wondering how he could find language to give his visitors to understand that they were welcome. He seemed to conclude at last that we were anxious to know next about his business (as if there was nothing in the wide world except his wife and the shingle business), and said:—

“You ask how I am getting along with my shingle-making.” We had not mentioned the subject at all, by the way. “I answer, not very well. The trees cut very hard of late, and although I go to my work later, and come home earlier than formerly, I am more tired at night than usual. Shingle-making does not progress very well; I am afraid I am not as young as I was ten or twelve years ago, but we must all wear out. You two are commencing; I am finishing, but I doubt if you think of the future more pleasantly than I do. I am always tired now, and rest to me is as agreeable as hope to you. Look at my hands.”

“They hurt me a great deal.” We both expressed a regret that his hands were not better. “But I am well every other way, except that I get tired so easy. If I could get the cracks out of my hands, the shingle business would get on better.”

I had noticed before that he apologized for old age and weakness in this way, and tried to convince himself that he was very well, and very strong, except that his hands would crack open, and occasionally he raised them up, and looked at the sores, as though they would finally be the death of him.

“She has good success with other people, but poor luck with my hands.” He always spoke of his wife as “she,” as she always referred to him as “he.” “They baffle her skill. I suppose they are in a bad way.”

He got up at this, and began walking up and down the floor, rubbing his hands together. Remembering his great feats at walking, I thought if his hands were as sound as his legs, he would still be a stout man. Coming back to his chair presently, he sat down, and said to Jo:—

“Since we are talking of your new business, I may as well say that she has agreed that you are to have this place.” I could not help wondering what boy had sat between them, and made a conversation on the subject possible. “I don’t know whether it is fit for what you want it or not, but we have both decided that you may try.”

“If my hands get better by the time you are ready to commence,” he said, “I will help you. I was once a good hand at framing timbers, and there is enough on the place to build the mill. I have picked out a great many sticks in my trips to the woods which will be suitable.”

It pleased Jo to know that he had been planning to help him, for no one else had.

“I don’t want you to help me, father,” he said, “though I am glad you offer to, for now I know you have confidence in me. I intend to help you, after I become a miller, instead of permitting you to help me. I am sorry I never talked to you about it before; you know more about it than any of them.”

“I have thought about your mill a great deal,” was his reply, “and have great hope that you will turn out a better man than your father. I have never amounted to much; both of you know that, but you have a better start. It is poor enough; you can imagine what mine was, and you know more than I did at your age. I have lived all my life in places where men were not expected to amount to much, and were satisfied if they did not. It seems to be different now.”

What a dull country he must have lived in, to have thought Fairview superior to it!

“I think you ought to build your house where this one stands,” he said. “I have planted a number of trees around it for you, and I hope that when you are grown up, your happy children may play under their shade. It is a pretty place here, and it is but a few rods to the best point for a mill. I have more confidence in you than any one else. I would help you if I could.”

My grandfather pretended not to know what we were about, but I saw him looking frequently into the kitchen, where we were, and when it was declared ready, he tried to be greatly surprised. There was a number of young chickens running around, and we had taken two of these, intending to leave word for Gran that the hawks had been about, and that the mice had been in the pickles and preserves. The dinner was Jo’s best effort, and, being familiar with everything his father was fond of, he succeeded in making him very good natured.

“It is just such a dinner as I can enjoy,” he said, when he sat down to it. “You seem to be able to do everything, Jo, but I hope you will get out of the way, for these Jacks are said to be able to make everything except money. I depend on you to distinguish your family; there is no one else to do it, and we come of a long line of very common folks. I enjoy your dinner, but I am sorry you can cook so well; really, I am sorry. I could cook when I was of your age, and I could cut hair, and I never amounted to anything. You should get out of the way.”

. . . . .

The Shepherds lived on the other side of Big Creek woods, on the high divide between Big Creek and Bull River, in a house originally dingy enough, but which had been wonderfully transformed by their living in it. The people said enough money had been spent in repairing it to build a house large enough for three, and it was furnished throughout in a style very unusual in that country, although it was no more than comfortable.

Mateel met us at the door, and as she ushered us into the neat parlor I thought I had never seen a handsomer woman, with the possible exception of Agnes, and I could not but inwardly congratulate Jo on his good fortune. I thought that I could see that she was very fond of him, now that it had been called to my mind, though I may only have imagined it, for she was as polite to me as to him.

“I am glad to see you,” she said, taking my hat, which I was careful to remove, remembering Jo’s experience. “My father did not feel well to-day, and we are all at home, as Mr. Westlock agreed to take his place at Fairview.”

“I worked in the field so late Saturday,” he said, with the utmost candor and freedom, “that I felt too tired to preach to-day, so I sent word to your father that he would oblige me by preaching a sermon on future punishment. It is one of the rules of the church that this disagreeable topic be discussed from the pulpit at least once a year. I dislike it, and am glad to shirk. Your father is very fond of the subject, I am told. But no difference what he says about it, I will apologize next Sunday, and deny it. The religion of Fairview seems to make the people miserable; I shall change it if I can. I have been religious all my life, and it never caused me a sorrow. I don’t believe in devils much, but I believe a great deal in angels.”

As he looked at me as if he desired an expression on the subject, I said angels were certainly the most comforting to think about.

“I have been much distressed by the unhappy faces I have seen since coming here, and I hope I may be the humble instrument of brightening them. The right kind of religion will put flowers in the yard, let sunlight in at the window, and fill the house with content and happiness. I became a Christian man because I longed for heaven, rather than because I feared the dreadful abode of the wicked, and it is my intention to introduce this gospel here.”

“I have always thought that the Bible is such a convincing book that it finally converts nearly all the children of men,—I hope all of them,—though the church to which I belong does not cheerfully accept my opinion. The Bible is only in dispute because a new set of men are coming on all the time, who have also to be convinced and saved. Its promises are so magnificent that no one can read them all his life and fail to put himself in the way of their fulfilment; therefore there is no excuse for referring to the disagreeable subject I have just mentioned. You may as well look on the bright side of religion as on the bright side of anything else, and you know we are always having maxims of this kind thrown at us. This is the religion the present pastor of Fairview believes in, and this is the religion he will teach, though I have not taught much of it to-day, for I have not mentioned the subject at all until now. But I only came in to say I was glad to see you, and will go out again,” he said, rising. “I am becoming very worldly of late, for I have been thinking all day of how the potatoes and corn I ploughed last week are getting on rather than of sermons, and I am so sleepy now that you perhaps noticed me blinking. I am also forgetting a great deal of my theology in the hunger which constantly besets me, and if I raise nothing at all this year I will feel well repaid for my work by the good health I have enjoyed. When you return home express my thanks to your father for his sermon.”

As he went out I thought if he was not a remarkable preacher he was certainly a good man. His respectable wife followed, and as she had not said a word I thought we should not miss her company.

He addressed the remark to Mateel, but she did not seem sure whether it was queer or not; she was never certain of anything, like her father.

“I have an idea that we shall be old men together, and die greatly regretted by one another,” Jo continued. “I should be content with a very few friends like Ned; a man cannot do justice to a great many as true and good as he is. If I were wealthy I should build a high wall around my house, and station a surly porter at the gate instructed to admit only a very few. It is one of the disadvantages of the trade I am learning that I shall be expected to be sociable with every kind of men. I shall never be free to tell those I dislike to forever keep off my premises, as I should like to do, but in order to live I shall be compelled to treat them well for their patronage. It has been my experience that only two men out of every ten have qualities worthy of cultivation, but it would be ruinous to introduce such a doctrine into the mill business.”

I saw that Jo was in an odd humor, for he had forgotten that he should make himself agreeable, and, stopped occasionally to think. Pretending not to notice it, I exchanged the little gossip of the neighborhood with Mateel, until Jo said, with an effort to shake off his gloomy thoughts:—

“Miss Shepherd, I should like to hear you sing.”

“It’s a song about love,” Jo said, after Mateel had finished it, picking up the music and looking curiously at the title-page. “Most song-writers take that for a subject. Do you believe the story it tells?”

“I sang it because I believed it,” Mateel said, wincing under Jo’s cold and steady gaze (he was in a very odd humor indeed). “I believe in but one love.”

“There are so many people who believe in two or three, or half a dozen. I suppose you do; all good people are very honorable in matters of this kind. Sometimes very bad people believe in it—I do, for one.”

I have thought of this very often since, for a great deal that was horrible might have been avoided had the conversation been candid on both sides.

“I would be afraid of getting in love’s way,” he said, as though we had been accusing him. “They say it never runs smooth, and I should be very unhappy were it to be interrupted. The writer speaks of the heart’s silent secrets. That seems to be the general heart trouble; it is a repository of secrets, and always uncomfortable ones. The subject makes me miserable; I never thought of it in my life that I did not at once become disagreeable.”

Mateel laughed merrily at this, and said people usually thought of it to be gay.

I had never seen Jo in such a serious mood before, and mentioned it. His old, cheerful smile returned for a moment as he made some good-natured response, but as he kept on thinking it was soon replaced with a frown. Mateel seemed to enjoy his mood, and encouraged it by saying that a man had a different opinion of love every year of his life.

“I never had an opinion on the subject at all until this year,” was his reply, “but I will tell you what I think of it next year, and the next. If I am of the same opinion then as now, you can give me the credit that my first impressions represented me. My first impressions of the subject are that I would as soon marry a widow as a girl who had been in love before. If I were the king of a country I would punish second marriage with death, and make it unlawful for a man or woman to be engaged more than once, thus preventing the marital unhappiness which I am sure always results when either the wife or husband knows the other has been in love before.”

Mateel laughed so heartily over this absurd idea that I joined her in spite of myself, though I knew Jo was very serious, and he looked at us both as though we were attending his funeral and in good spirits over the grave.

“I came here to pass a pleasant evening,” I said to him, “but if you continue in this humor we shall all have the horrors presently.”

Having selected a more cheerful song we tried to sing it together, but it was a failure, and the evening dragged heavily after that, so much so that Jo announced his intention to go quite early.

“I was never gloomy in my life before,” he said to Mateel on parting. “I don’t know what caused me to be to-night, for I am usually happier here than anywhere else. It must have been the gloomy poet whose song you sang. I hope you will forgive me. When I come again we will not speak of love. I know so little of it that I can’t be entertaining talking about it.”

Perhaps your ignorance of love, Jo, will prove more serious than you expect. Had you more knowledge of it you would know that your lonely fancies are wrong, and that there is not such a woman in the world as you have created, and no such love as you expect. Perhaps had you mingled more with the world you would have known this and saved yourself much unhappiness.

I went out ahead of him, and he remained inside talking for a few moments. Mateel seemed to be assuring him that she was not offended, and I heard him thank her, quietly say his adieus, and close the door.

We rode a considerable distance in silence, for I was waiting for Jo to speak, as he had to my mind emerged from boyhood to manhood since coming to the mill to live, and I was not as free in his company as I had been at home.

He stopped in the road to consider it, but, recollecting that it would be a ridiculous performance, rode on again.

“My love for her has taken such complete possession of me that I shall be fit for nothing else until I know what I am to expect. If I were older, and not so poor, I would go back to-night, declare my love, and insist that she forever reject me or marry me in five minutes. But even if she accepts me—when I offer myself—it will be years before I can hope to possess her. I have always been waiting—first for release from your father, then for release from Barker, and now for Mateel. I would sell myself to the Devil to-night, to be delivered in four or five years, for a little age, a home of my own, and Mateel for my wife—NOW, not to wait a minute.”