"I think we will take it, Mr. Sleighter," said Mrs. Gwynne. "Michael dear, I feel Mr. Sleighter is right, and besides I know he is doing us a great kindness."

"Kindness, ma'am, not at all. Business is business, and that's all there is to it. Well, I'll be goin'. Think it over, get the papers fixed up by to-morrow. No, don't thank me. Good-bye."

Mrs. Gwynne followed him to the door, her face flushed, her eyes aglow, a smile hovering uncertainly about her lips. "Mr. Sleighter," she said, "the Lord sent you to us because He knew we were in need of guiding."

"Ho, ho!" laughed Mr. Sleighter. "Like that Samaritan chap in the reading, eh? I guess you had got among thieves all right, more of 'em perhaps than you recognised too."

"He sent you to us," repeated Mrs. Gwynne, offering him her hand.

"Well, I donno but that He steered me to you. But all the same I guess the advantage is to me all right." Mr. Sleighter looked hard down the street, then turned and faced her squarely. "I want to say that it's done me a pile of good to have seen you, ma'am. It's made things look different."

"You are a good man, Mr. Sleighter," she said, looking at him with misty eyes.

"A good man!" Mr. Sleighter was seized with a cough. "A good man! Good Lord, ma'am! nobody never found it out but you—durn that cough anyway." And still troubled by his cough, Mr. Sleighter hurried down the path to the gate and out on to the road.

Once resolved to break up their home in Eastern Canada, the Gwynnes lost no time in completing their arrangements for the transportation of themselves and their household gods and such of their household goods as Mr. Sleighter advised, to the new western country.

Mr. Sleighter appeared to regard the migration of the Gwynne family to the western country as an enterprise in which he had made an investment from which he was bound to secure the greatest possible return. The principle of exchange which had been the basis of the deal as far as the farms were concerned was made to apply as far as possible to farm implements and equipment, household goods and chattels.

"What's the use of your packin' a hull bunch of stuff West an' my packin' a hull bunch of stuff East. We'll just tote up the stock an' stuff we have got and make a deal on it. I know all my stuff an' yours is here. We'll make a trade."

To this Mr. Gwynne gladly agreed. The arrangement would save trouble and useless expenditure. Hence the car was packed with such goods as Mr. Sleighter considered especially useful in the new home, and with such household furniture as the new home lacked and such articles as were precious from family or personal associations.

"What about the pictures and curtains?" inquired Mr. Gwynne. "We don't need them."

"Take 'em all," said Mr. Sleighter. "Pictures are like folks. They got faces an' looks. And curtains—my missis got hers all packed. Curtains are like clothes—they only fit them that owns them."

"And the piano?"

"Sure thing. Say, a piano in that country is like the village pump—the hull country gets about it. Take things to eat an' things to wear an' things to make the shack look pretty an' interestin' and comfortable. They don't take much room and they take the bareness off. That's what kills the women folk in the West, the bareness inside and outside. Nothin' but chairs, table an' stove inside; nothin' but grass an' sand outside. That's what makes 'em go crazy."

So the car was filled with things to eat and to wear, and things "to take the bareness off." Somewhere in the car was found a place for Rosie, the cow, a remarkable milker and "worth her weight in butter," as Mr. Sleighter said, and for Rover, Larry's collie dog, who stood to him as comrade almost as a brother. A place in the car too was found for Joe Gagneau who from the first moment of the announced departure had expressed his determination to accompany Larry no matter at what cost or against whose opposition.

"A'm goin' be in dat car' me, by gar!" was his ultimatum, and the various authorities interested recognised the inevitable and accepted it, to the great delight of both boys. Joe had a mouth organ and so had Larry, and they were both in the same key. Joe too had an old fiddle of his father's on which he could scrape with joy to himself, and with more or less agony to others, the dance tunes of local celebrity, the "Red River Jig," picked up from his father, "Money Musk" and "The Deil Amang the Tailors," the two latter from Dan Monroe at the country dances.

In due time the car, packed with the Gwynne household goods and treasures and in charge of the two superlatively happy boys, with Rosie and Rover to aid in providing them with sustenance and protection, set forth, Westward Ho! Mr. Gwynne rode in the caboose of the train to which his car was attached. Mrs. Gwynne and the girls were to follow by passenger train and would doubtless be found awaiting them on their arrival at Winnipeg.

The journey westward was to the boys full of interest and adventure. At Toronto they picked up a stowaway, who, taking advantage of their absence, boarded the car and made himself a bed behind some bales of hay. Upon discovery by Rover, he made so piteous an appeal for refuge from some pursuing terror which he declined to specify, that the boys agreed to conceal him a night and a day till they were well on their way along the north shore of Lake Superior. When Larry's conscience made further concealment a burden greater than could be borne, Mr. Gwynne was taken into the boys' confidence and, after protest, agreed to make arrangement with the railroad authorities whereby Sam—for that was the stowaway's name—might retain his place in the car.

He was a poor, wretched creature, reminding Larry of the scarecrow which he had put up in their garden the summer before. He was thin beyond anything the boys had ever seen. His face was worn and old and came to a peak at the nose, which gave him the appearance of a monster rat, a resemblance emphasised by the little blinking, red-rimmed eyes. His hair was closely cropped and of brilliant carrotty colour.

But he had seen life in a great city and had gathered a store of worldly wisdom, not all of which was for his good, and a repertoire of accomplishments that won him admiration and wonder from the simple country boys. He had all the new ragtime songs and dances, which he rendered to his own accompaniment on an old battered banjo. He was a contortionist of quite unusual cleverness, while his fund of stories never ran dry throughout the seven days' journey to Winnipeg. He set himself with the greatest assiduity to impart his accomplishments to the boys, and by the time the party had reached the end of the first stage in their westward journey, Sam had the satisfaction of observing that his pupils had made very satisfactory progress, both with the clog dancing and with the ragtime songs. Besides this, he had made for himself an assured place in their affection, and even Mr. Gwynne had come to feel such an interest in the bit of human driftwood flung up against him, that he decided to offer the waif a chance to try his fortune in the West.



CHAPTER VI

JANE BROWN

Mr. Brown was a busy man, but he never failed to be in his place at the foot of the table every day punctually at half past twelve, solely because at that hour his little daughter, Jane, would show her grave and earnest and dark brown, almost swarthy, face at the head. Eight years ago another face used to appear there, also grave, earnest, but very fair and very lovely to look upon, to the doctor the fairest of all faces on the earth. The little, plain, swarthy-faced child the next day after that lovely face had been forever shut away from the doctor's eyes was placed in her high chair at the head of the table, at first only at the lunch hour, but later at all meal times before the doctor to look at. And it was an ever-recurring joy to the lonely man to discover in the little grave face before him fleeting glimpses of the other face so tenderly loved and so long vanished. These glimpses were to be discovered now in the deep blue eyes, deep in colour and in setting, now in the smile that lit up the dark, irregular features like the sudden break of sunlight upon the rough landscape, transforming it into loveliness, now in the knitting of the heavy eyebrows, and in the firm pressing of the lips in moments of puzzled thought. In all the moods and tenses of the little maid the doctor looked for and found reminiscences of her mother.

Through those eight lonely years the little girl had divided with his profession the doctor's days. Every morning after breakfast he stood to watch the trim, sturdy, round little figure dance down the steps, step primly down the walk, turn at the gate to throw a kiss, and then march away along the street to the corner where another kiss would greet him before the final vanishing. Every day they met at noon to exchange on equal terms the experiences of the morning. Every night they closed the day with dinner and family prayers, the little girl gravely taking her part in the reading during the last year from her mother's Bible. And so it came that with the years their friendship grew in depth, in frankness and in tenderness. The doctor was widely read beyond the literature of his profession, and every day for a half hour it was his custom to share with the little girl the treasures of his library. The little maid repaid him with a passionate love and a quaint mothering care tender and infinitely comforting to the lonely man.

The forenoon had been hot and trying, and Dr. Brown, having been detained in his office beyond his regular hour, had been more than usually hurried in his round of morning calls, and hence was more than ordinarily tired with his morning's work. At his door the little girl met him.

"Come in, Papa, I know you're hot," she said, love and reproach in her face, "because I was hot myself, and you will need a nice, cool drink. I had one and yours is in here." She led him into the study, hovering about him with little touches and pushes. "You ought not to have taken so long a round this morning," she said with gentle severity. "I know you went out to St. James to see Mrs. Kale, and you know quite well she doesn't need you. It would do in the afternoon. And it was awful hot in school."

"Awful?" said the doctor.

"Well, very exceedingly then—and the kids were very tired and Miss Mutton was as cross as anything."

"It was no wonder. How many kids were there for her to watch?"

"Oh, Papa, you said 'kids!'"

"I was just quoting my young daughter."

"And she said we were to get out this afternoon an hour earlier," continued Jane, ignoring his criticism, "and so I am going to take my bicycle and go with Nora and the girls down to the freight sheds."

"The freight sheds?"

"Yes, Larry and Joe have come in, and Rover and Rosie—she's the cow, and they milked her every day twice and drank the milk and they used to have their meals together in the car."

"Rosie, too? Very interesting indeed."

"Now, Papa, you must not laugh at me. It is very interesting. They all came for days and days together in the car from somewhere down East, Ontario, I think. And Mr. Gwynne says they are just like a circus. And they play instiments and dance."

"What, Rosie too? How clever of her!"

The child's laugh rang out joyously. "Oh, Papa, that's awfully funny. And we're going down on our wheels. Nora can ride now, you know, and she's going to take Ethel May's wheel. It's awfully hard to ride, but Nora's as strong as Kathleen."

"Well, well," said her father, greatly interested in this exciting but somewhat confused tale. "Just wait until I wash my hands and then you shall tell me what it all means. Thank you for this deliciously cool lemonade. It is very refreshing. You will tell me all about it at lunch."

The lunch hour was devoted first of all to disentangling from the mass the individual members of the car party, which after an adventurous journey across half a continent had apparently made camp at the Winnipeg freight sheds. Then followed the elucidation of the details of the plan by which this camp was to be attacked and raided during the afternoon.

"Now that I have a fairly clear conception of whom Larry, Joe, Sam, Rosie and Rover are—I think I have them right—"

"Exactly, Papa."

"I wish to find out just who are to form the advance party, the scouting party."

"The scouting party? I don't know what you mean. But Nora—you know Nora?"

"Certainly, the little black-eyed Irish Terrier—terror, I mean."

"Oh, Papa, she's just lovely and she's my friend."

"Is she, dear, then I apologise, but indeed I meant nothing derogatory to her. I greatly like her, she is so spunky."

"Yes, there's Nora, and Kathleen, Nora's sister."

"Oh, Kathleen, the tall beautiful girl with the wonderful hair?"

The little girl sighed. "Oh, such lovely long yellow hair." The little maid's hair was none of these. "And she is not a bit proud—just nice, you know—just as if she were not so lovely, but like—only like me."

"Like you, indeed!" exclaimed the doctor indignantly. "Like my little girl? I don't see any one quite like my little girl. There is not one of them with all their yellow hair and things that is to be compared with my own little girl."

"Oh, Papa. I know you think so, and I wish it was so. And I am awfully glad you think so, but of course you are prejuist, you know."

"Prejudiced? Not a bit, not a bit."

"Well, that's Kathleen and Nora, and—and perhaps Hazel—you know Hazel, Papa, Hazel Sleighter?"

"The western girl—not at all wild and woolly though. A very modern and very advanced young lady, isn't she?"

"Oh, I don't know what you mean, Papa. She says she may go down, but I don't think she likes going with a lot of kids. You know she has her hair up. She has to have it up in the store. She says the man would not have her behind the counter if she had not her hair up."

"Oh, that's it. I thought perhaps the maturity of her age made it necessary."

"I don't know what maturevy means, but she is awfully old. She is going on sixteen."

"Dear me, as old as that?" inquired her father.

"Yes, but she said she wanted to see that circus car. That's what she calls Mr. Gwynne's car. And she says she wants to see the elephunts perform. There are not any elephunts. There's only Rosie and Rover. But she may get off. She can get off if she can fool her boss, she says. So we're all going down and we may bring Larry home with us, Mrs. Sleighter says. Though Mrs. Gwynne says there's not any room, they're so filled up now. And I said Larry could come here and Joe, too. But I am not so sure about Sam. I think he must be awfully queer. Mr. Gwynne thinks he's queer."

"It is quite possible, indeed probable, my dear," assented her father.

"Yes, Mr. Gwynne said he looked like a third-rate how-do-you-feel performer."

"A what, exactly?"

"A how-do-you-feel performer."

"Oh, a vaudeville performer."

"Yes, a fodefeel performer. I don't know what that means, but he must be queer. But I think Larry would be all right, and Joe. You see, we know THEM."

"Oh, do we?"

"Yes, certainly, Papa. Larry is Nora's brother. He's awfully clever. He's only fifteen and he passed the Entrance in Ontario and that's ever so much harder than here. He passed it before he was fourteen."

"Before he was fourteen!" replied her father. "Amazing!"

"Yes, and he plays the mouth organ and the tin whistle and the fiddle, and Mr. Gwynne says he has learned some stunts from Sam. I think he must be awfully nice. So I said he could come here. And Mrs. Gwynne thanked me so nicely, and she's just lovely, Papa."

"I have not seen her," said her father, "but I have heard her voice, and I quite agree with you. The voice always tells. Have you noticed that? The voice gives the keynote of the soul."

"I don't know, Papa. There's Mrs. Sleighter's voice. I don't like it very much, but I think she's nice inside."

"Ah, you are right, my dear. Perhaps I should have said that a certain kind of voice always goes with a beautiful soul."

"I know," replied his daughter. "That's like Mrs. Gwynne's voice. And so we'll go down to the car and bring Larry home with us, and perhaps his mother will let him come here. She did not say she would and you can't tell. She's quiet, you know, but somehow she isn't like Mrs. Sleighter. I don't think you could coax her to do what she didn't want."

"And Mrs. Sleighter—can you coax Mrs. Sleighter?"

"Oh, yes, the girls just coax her and coax her, and though she doesn't want to a bit, she just gives in."

"That's nice of her. That must be very nice for the girls, eh?"

"Oh, I don't know, Papa."

"What? don't you think it is nice to be able to coax people to do what you want?"

"It is nice to get what you want, but I think REALLY, REALLY, you'd rather you could not coax them to do it just because you coax them."

"Ah, I see."

"Yes; you see, you're never really quite sure after you get it whether you ought to get it after all."

"I see," said her father; "that rather spoils it."

"Yes, but you never do that, Papa."

"Oh, you can't coax me, eh? I am glad to know that. I was afraid, rather."

"Well, of course, I can coax you, Papa, but you usually find some other way, and then I know it is quite right."

"I wish I was quite as sure of that, Jane. But you are going to bring Larry home with you?"

"Yes, if Mrs. Gwynne will let him come. I told her we had four rooms and we were only using two, and they are all crowded up in Mrs. Sleighter's, two girls in each room, and Tom's room is so tiny, and I don't think Larry would like to go in Tom's room. And we have two empty rooms, so we might just as well."

"Yes, certainly, we might just as well. You might perhaps mention it to Anna."

"Oh, I did, Papa, and she said she would have it all ready."

"So it is all arranged. I was thinking—but never mind."

"I know you were thinking, that I ought to have asked you, Papa; and I ought to have. But I knew that when a little boy had no home to go to you would of course—"

"Of course," replied her father hurriedly. "You were quite right, Jane. And with those two rooms, why not bring them all, Joe and Pete—Pete, is it?"

"Sam, Papa. I am not so sure. I think we should leave Joe and Sam. You see Joe won't mind staying in the car. Nora says he lives in just a shack at home, and Sam—I am a little afraid of Sam. We don't know him very well, you see."

"I see. We are quite safe in your hands, little woman. You can do just as you and Mrs. Gwynne arrange."

As the father watched the little, trim, sturdy figure stepping down the street he muttered to himself, "That child grows more like her mother every day." He heaved a great sigh from the depths of his heart. "Well, God keep her, wise little woman that she is! I wish I were a wiser man. I must be firm with her; it would be a shame to spoil her. Yes, I must be firm." But he shrugged his shoulders and smiled at himself. "The worst of it is, or the best of it is," he continued, "the little witch is almost always right, God bless her, just like her mother, just like her mother." He hastily wiped his eyes, and went off to his office where Mrs. Dean awaited him and her little girl with the burned hand. And the mother wondered at the gentleness of him as he dressed the little girl's wounded hand.

It followed that the scouting party included not only Miss Hazel Sleighter, but also her big brother Tom, who, being temporarily in the high school, more perhaps because of his size and the maturity of his bearing than by virtue of his educational qualifications, was at the present moment most chiefly concerned in getting into form his baseball team for the match the following Saturday in which the High School was to meet All Comers under eighteen. The freight shed being on his way to the practice ground, Tom deigned to join the party and to take in the circus car as he passed. The car dwellers were discovered on the open prairie not far from the freight shed, keeping guard over Rosie, who was stretching her legs after her railway journey. The boys were tossing a baseball to each other as Tom pedalled up on his wheel.

"Hello, there, here you are," he shouted to Sam, holding up his hands for a catch.

The ball came with such impact that Tom was distinctly jarred, and dropped the ball. With all his force he threw the ball back to Sam, who caught it with the ease of a professional and returned it with such vigour that again Tom dropped it.

"Let's have a knock-up," he said, hitting a long fly.

Sam flew after the ball with amazing swiftness, his scarecrow garments fluttering and flapping in the air, and caught it with an upward leap that landed him on his back breathless but triumphant.

"Say, you're a crackerjack," said Tom; "here's another."

Meanwhile Larry was in the hands of his sisters, who had delightedly kissed him to his shamefaced chagrin, and introduced him to their new-found friends.

"So this is Larry." said Miss Hazel Sleighter, greeting him with a dazzling smile. "We have heard a lot about you. I think you must be quite wonderful. Come here, Tom, and meet your friends."

Poor Larry! In the presence of this radiant creature and of her well-dressed brother, he felt terribly conscious of the shabbiness of the second best suit which his mother had thought good enough for the journey in the car. Tom glanced at the slight, poorly dressed, pale-faced lad who stood before him with an embarrassed, almost a beseeching look in his eyes.

"Can you play ball?" asked Tom.

"Not much," replied Larry; "not like Sam. Come here, Sam," he called, remembering that he had not introduced his friend. Sam shuffled over with an air of complete nonchalance.

"This is Sam," said Larry. "Sam—I have forgotten your name."

"Nolan," said Sam shortly.

"Miss Hazel Sleighter," said Larry.

"How do you do, Miss Hazel," said Sam, sweeping her an elaborate bow, and then gazing boldly into her eyes. "I hope you're well. If you're as smart as you look, I guess you're way up in G."

"I am quite well, thank you," returned Miss Hazel, the angle of her chin indicating her most haughty air.

"Say, young lady, pass up the chilly stuff," replied Sam with a laugh. "It don't go with that mighty fine complexion of yours. Say, did you ever see the leading lady in 'The Spider's Web'? Well, you make me think of her, and she was a peacherino. Never seen her? No? Well, you ought to see her some day and think of me."

Hazel turned a disgusted shoulder on Sam's impudent face and engaged Larry in vivacious conversation.

"Well, I am off to the ball practice," said Tom. "Got a match on Saturday—High School against the world. Guess they would like to have you, Sam, only I wouldn't care to have you play against us. You don't play baseball, eh?" continued Tom, addressing Larry. "What do you play—football?"

"Not much; never tried much," said Larry, flushing over his lack of sporting qualifications.

"He plays the fiddle," said a quiet little voice.

Larry, flushing violently, turned around and saw a little, brown-faced maid gazing thoughtfully at him.

"Oh, he does, eh? Ha, ha, ha. Good game, eh? Ha, ha, ha." They all joined in the laugh.

"And he plays the mouth organ, too, and does funny stunts," sturdily continued the little girl, disdaining Tom's scornful laughter.

"Good for you, Jane."

"Yes, and he passed his entrance to the High School a year ago when he was fourteen, in Ontario, anyway." This appeared to check Tom's hilarity.

"My, what a wonder he is! And did he tell you all this himself?"

"No, indeed," said Jane indignantly.

"Oh, I am glad to hear that," said Tom with a grin. "Won't you come along, Sam? It's only a little way down."

"All right," said Sam cheerfully. "So long, folks. See you later, Larry. Au reservoir, young lady, as the camel said to the elephant when he asked what he'd have. Hope I see you later if not sooner—ta-ta; tinga-ling; honk honk." Again he swept Miss Hazel an elaborate bow.

"Thinks he's smart," said that young lady, lifting her nose. "He's a regular scarecrow. Who in the world is he and where did he come from?" she demanded of Larry, who proceeded to account for Sam's presence with their party.

The visitors peered into the car and poked into its recesses, discovered the food supplies for boy and beast, and inspected the dormitories under Larry's guidance, while the boy, who had recovered from his embarrassment, discoursed upon the wonderful experience of the journey. Miss Hazel flashed her great blue eyes and her white teeth upon him, shook all her frizzes in his face, smiled at him, chattered to him, jeered at him, flattered him with all the arts and graces of the practiced flirt she was, until Larry, swept from his bearings, walked the clouds in a wonder world of rosy lights and ravishing airs. His face, his eyes, his eager words, his tremulous lips, were all eloquent of this new passion that possessed him.

As for Miss Hazel, accustomed as she was to the discriminating admiration of her fellow clerks, the sincerity and abandonment of this devotion was as incense to her flirtatious soul. Avid of admiration and experienced in most of the arts and wiles necessary to secure this from contiguous males, small wonder that the unsophisticated Larry became her easy prey long before she had brought to bear the full complement of her enginery of war.

It was a happy afternoon for the boy, but when informed by his sisters of his mother's desire that he should return with them, he was resolute in his refusal, urging many reasons why it was impossible that he should leave the car and his comrades. There was nothing for it but to leave him there and report to his mother their failure.

"I might have known," she said. "He would never come to a stranger's house in his old clothes. I will just bring down his best suit after tea."

The dinner hour at Dr. Brown's was fully occupied with an animated recital of the adventures of the afternoon. Each member of the car party was described with an accuracy and fulness of detail that would have surprised him.

"And you know, Papa," said the little maid, "Tom just laughed at Larry because he could not play baseball and things, and I just told him that Larry could play the mouth organ lovely and the fiddle, and they laughed and laughed. I think they were laughing at me. Tom laughed loudest of all, and he's not so smart himself, and anyway Larry passed the entrance a year ago and I just told him so."

"Oh, did you," said her father, "and how did Master Tom take that?"

"He didn't laugh quite as much. I don't think I like him very much."

"Ah?"

"But Hazel, she was just lovely to Larry. I think she's nice, Papa, and such lovely cheeks and hair." Here Jane sighed.

"Oh, has she? She is quite a grown-up young lady, is she not?"

"She has her hair up, Papa. She's sixteen, you know."

"I remember you told me that she had reached that mature age."

"And I think Larry liked her, too."

"Ah? And why do you think so?"

"He just looked at her, and looked, and looked."

"Well, that seems fairly good evidence."

"And he is coming up here to-night when we bring him his good clothes."

"Oh, you are to bring him his good clothes, are you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Gwynne and I are taking them down in the carriage."

"Oh, in the carriage—Mrs. Gwynne—"

"Yes, you know—Oh, here's Nora at the door. Excuse me, Papa. I am sure it is important."

She ran to the door and in a moment or two returned with a note. "It's for you, Papa, and I know it's about the carriage." She watched her father somewhat anxiously as he read the note.

"Umm-um. Very good, very nice and proper. Certainly. Just say to Mrs. Gwynne that we are very pleased to be able to serve her with the carriage, and that we hope Larry will do us the honour of coming to us."

Jane nodded delightedly. "I know, Papa. I told her that already. But I'll tell her this is the answer to the note."

Under Jane's direction and care they made their visit to the car, but on their return no Larry was with them. He would come after the picnic and baseball game tomorrow, perhaps, but not to-night. His mother was plainly disappointed, and indeed a little hurt. She could not understand her son. It was not his clothes after all as she had thought. She pondered over his last words spoken as he bade her farewell at the car door, and was even more mystified.

"I'll be glad when we get to our own place again," he said. "I hate to be beholden to anybody. We're as good as any of them anyway." The bitterness in his tone mystified her still more.

It was little Jane who supplied the key to the mystery. "I don't think he likes Tom very much," said the little girl. "He likes Hazel, though. But he might have come to our house; I did not laugh." And then the mother thought she understood.

That sudden intensity of bitterness in her boy's voice startled her a little, but deep down in her heart she was conscious of a queer feeling of satisfaction, almost of pride. "He's just like his father," she said to herself. "He likes to be independent." Strict honesty in thought made her add, "And like me, too, I fear."

The picnic day was one of those intensely hot June days when the whole world seems to stand quivering and breathlessly attent while Nature works out one of her miracles over fields of grain, over prairie flowers, over umbrageous trees and all things borne upon the bosom of Mother Earth, checking the succulence of precocious overgrowths, hardening fibre, turning plant energy away from selfish exuberance in mere stalk building into the altruistic sacrament of ripening fruit and hardening grain. A wise old alchemist is Mother Earth, working in time but ever for eternity.

The picnickers who went out to the park early in the day were driven for refuge from the blazing sun to the trees and bushes, where prostrated by the heat they lay limp and flaccid upon the grass. Miss Hazel Sleighter, who for some reason which she could not explain to herself had joined the first contingent of picnickers, was cross, distinctly and obviously cross. The heat was trying to her nerves, but worse, it made her face red—red all over. Her pink parasol intensified the glow upon her face.

"What a fool I was to come, in this awful heat," she said to herself. "They won't be here for hours, and I will be just like a wash-rag."

Nor was Larry enjoying the picnic. The material comforts in the form of sandwiches, cakes and pies, gloriously culminating in lemonade and ice cream, while contributing a temporary pleasure, could not obliterate a sense of misery wrought in him by Miss Hazel's chilly indifference. That young lady, whose smiles so lavishly bestowed only yesterday had made for him a new heaven and a new earth, had to-day merely thrown him a passing glance and a careless "Hello," as she floated by intent on bigger game.

In addition, the boy was conscious of an overpowering lassitude that increased as the day wore on. His misery and its chief cause had not escaped the observing eyes of the little maid, Jane Brown, whose clear and incisive voice was distinctly audible as she confided to her friend Nora her disappointment in Miss Hazel.

"She won't look at him to-day," she said. "She's just waiting for the boys to come. She'll be nicer then."

There was no animus in the voice, only surprise and disappointment. To Larry, however, the fact that the secret tragedy of his soul was thus laid bare, filled him with a sudden rage. He cast a wrathful eye upon the little maid. She met his glance with a placid smile, volunteering the cheerful remark, "They won't be long now."

A fury possessed the boy. "Oh shut your mouth, will you?" he said, glaring at her.

For a moment little Jane looked at him, surprise, dismay, finally pity succeeding each other in the deep blue eyes. Hastily she glanced about to see if the others had heard the awful outburst. She was relieved to note that only Joe and Nora were near enough to hear. She settled herself down in a position of greater comfort and confided to her friend Nora with an air of almost maternal solicitude, "I believe he has a pain. I am sure he has a pain."

Larry sprang to his feet, and without a glance at his anxious tormentor said, "Come on, Joe, let's go for a hunt in the woods."

Jane looked wistfully after the departing boys. "I wish they would ask us, Nora. Don't you? I think he is nice when he isn't mad," she said. To which Nora firmly assented.

A breeze from the west and the arrival of the High School team, resplendent in their new baseball uniforms, brought to the limp loiterers under the trees a reviving life and interest in the day's doings.

It was due to Jane that Sam got into the game, for when young Frank Smart was searching for a suitable left fielder to complete the All Comers team, he spied seated among the boys the little girl.

"Hello, Jane; in your usual place, I see!" he called out to her as he passed.

"Hello, Frank!" she called to him brightly. "Frank! Frank!" she cried, after the young man had passed, springing up and running after him.

"I am in a hurry, Jane; I must get a man for left field."

"But, Frank," she said, catching his arm, for young Smart was a great friend of hers and of her father's. "I want to tell you. You see that funny boy under the tree," she continued, lowering her voice. "Well, he's a splendid player. Tom doesn't want him to play, and I don't either, because I want the High School to beat. But it would not be fair not to tell you, would it?"

Young Smart looked at her curiously. "Say, little girl, you're a sport. And is he a good player?"

"Oh, he's splendid, but he's queer—I mean he looks queer. He's awfully funny. But that doesn't matter, does it?"

"Not a hair, if he can play ball. What's his name?"

"Sam—something."

"Sam Something? That is a funny name."

"Oh, you know, Sam. I don't know his other name."

"Well, I'll try him, Jane," said young Smart, moving toward the boy and followed by the eager eyes of the little girl.

"I say, Sam," said Smart, "we want a man for left field. Will you take a go at it?"

"Too hot," grunted Sam.

"Oh, you won't find it too hot when you get started. Rip off your coat and get into the game. You can play, can't you?"

"Aw, what yer givin' us. I guess I can give them ginks a few pointers."

"Well, come on."

"Too hot," said Sam.

Jane pulled young Smart by the sleeve. "Tell him you will give him a jersey," she said in a low voice. "His shirt is torn."

Again young Smart looked at Jane with scrutinising eyes. "You're a wonder," he said.

"Come along, Sam. You haven't got your sweater with you, but I will get one for you. Get into the bush there and change."

With apparent reluctance, but with a gleam in his little red eyes, Sam slouched into the woods to make the change, and in a few moments came forth and ran to take his position at left field.

The baseball match turned out to be a mere setting for the display of the eccentricities and superior baseball qualities of Sam, which apparently quite outclassed those of his teammates in the match. After three disastrous innings, Sam caused himself to be moved first to the position of short stop, and later to the pitcher's box, to the immense advantage of his side. But although, owing to the lead obtained by the enemy, his prowess was unable to ward off defeat from All Comers, yet under his inspiration and skilful generalship, the team made such a brilliant recovery of form and came so near victory that Sam was carried from the field in triumph shoulder high and departed with his new and enthusiastically grateful comrades to a celebration.

Larry, however, was much too miserable and much too unhappy for anything like a celebration. The boy was oppressed with a feeling of loneliness, and was conscious chiefly of a desire to reach his car and crawl into his bed there among the straw. Stumbling blindly along the dusty road; a cheery voice hailed him.

"Hello, Larry!" It was Jane seated beside her father in his car.

"Hello!" he answered faintly and just glanced at her as the car passed.

But soon the car pulled up. "Come on, Larry, we'll take you home," said Jane.

"Oh, I'm all right," said Larry, forcing his lips into his old smile and resolutely plodding on.

"Better come up, my boy," said the doctor.

"I don't mind walking, sir," replied Larry, stubbornly determined to go his lonely way.

"Come here, boy," said the doctor, regarding him keenly. Larry came over to the wheel. "Why, boy, what is the matter?" The doctor took hold of his hand.

Larry gripped the wheel hard. He was feeling desperately ill and unsteady on his legs, but still his lips twisted themselves into a smile. "I'm all right, sir," he said; "I've got a headache and it was pretty hot out there."

But even as he spoke his face grew white and he swayed on his feet. In an instant the doctor was out of his car. "Get in, lad," he said briefly, and Larry, surrendering, climbed into the back seat, fighting fiercely meanwhile to prevent the tears from showing in his eyes. Keeping up a brisk and cheerful conversation with Jane in regard to the game, the doctor drove rapidly toward his home.

"You will come in with us, my boy," said the doctor as they reached his door.

By this time Larry was past all power of resistance and yielded himself to the authority of the doctor, who had him upstairs and into bed within a few minutes of his arrival. A single word Larry uttered during this process, "Tell my mother," and then sank into a long nightmare, through which there mingled dim shapes and quiet voices, followed by dreamless sleep, and an awakening to weakness that made the lifting of his eyelids an effort and the movement of his hand a weariness. The first object that loomed intelligible through the fog in which he seemed to move was a little plain face with great blue eyes carrying in them a cloud of maternal anxiety. Suddenly the cloud broke and the sun burst through in a joyous riot, for in a voice that seemed to him unfamiliar and remote Larry uttered the single word, "Jane."

"Oh!" cried the little girl rapturously. "Oh, Larry, wait." She slipped from the room and returned in a moment with his mother, who quickly came to his side.

"You are rested, dear," she said, putting her hand under his head. "Drink this. No, don't lift your head. Now then, go to sleep again, darling," and, stooping down, she kissed him softly.

"Why—are—you—crying?" he asked faintly. "What's the—matter?"

"Nothing, darling; you are better. Just sleep."

"Better?—Have—I—been—sick?"

"Yes, you have been sick," said his mother.

"Awfully sick," said Jane solemnly. "A whole week sick. But you are all right now," she added brightly, "and so is Joe, and Sam, and Rover and Rosie. I saw them all this morning and you know we have been praying and praying and—"

"Now he will sleep, Jane," said his mother, gently touching the little girl's brown tangle of hair.

"Yes, he will sleep; oh, I'm just awful thankful," said Jane, suddenly rushing out of the room.

"Dear little girl," said the mother. "She has been so anxious and so helpful—a wonderful little nurse."

But Larry was fast asleep, and before he was interested enough to make inquiry about his comrades in travel the car in charge of Joe and Sam, with Mr. Gwynne in the caboose, was far on its way to Alberta. After some days Jane was allowed to entertain the sick boy, as was her custom with her father, by giving an account of her day's doings. These were happy days for them both. Between the boy and the girl the beginnings of a great friendship sprang up.

"Larry, I think you are queer," said Jane to him gravely one day. "You are not a bit like you were in the car."

A quick flush appeared on the boy's face. "I guess I was queer that day, Jane," he said. "I know I felt queer."

"Yes, that's it," said Jane, delighted by some sudden recollection. "You were queer then, and now you're just ornary. My, you were sick and you were cross, too, awful cross that day. I guess it was the headick. I get awfully cross, too, when I have the headick. I don't think you will be cross again ever, will you, Larry?"

Larry, smiling at her, replied, "I'll never be cross with you, Jane, anyway, never again."



CHAPTER VII

THE GIRL OF THE WOOD LOT

June, and the sun flooding with a golden shimmer a land of tawny prairie, billowy hills, wooded valleys and mountain peaks white with eternal snows, touching with silver a stream which, glacier-born, hurled itself down mountain sides in fairy films of mist, rushed through canyons in a mad torrent, hurried between hills in a swollen flood, meandered along wide valleys in a full-lipped tide, lingered in a placid lake in a bit of lowland banked with poplar bluffs, and so onward past ranch-stead and homestead to the great Saskatchewan and Father Ocean, prairie and hills, valleys and mountains, river and lake, making a wonder world of light and warmth and colour and joyous life.

Two riders on rangey bronchos, followed by two Russian boarhounds, climbed the trail that went winding up among the hills towards a height which broke abruptly into a ridge of bare rock. Upon the ridge they paused.

"There! Can you beat that? If so, where?" The lady swept her gauntletted hand toward the scene below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt was tall, strongly made, handsome with that comeliness which perfect health and out-of-doors life combine to give, her dark hair, dark flashing eyes, straight nose, wide, full-lipped curving mouth, and a chin whose chiselled firmness was softened but not weakened by a dimple, making a picture good to look upon.

"There!" she cried again, "tell me, can you beat it?"

"Glorious! Sybil, utterly and splendidly glorious!" said her brother, his eyes sweeping the picture below. "And you too, Sybil," he said, turning his eyes upon her. "This country has done you well. By jove, what a transformation from the white-faced, willowy—"

"Weedy," said she.

"Well, as it's no longer true, weedy—woman that faded out of London, how many—eight years ago!"

"Ten years, ten long, glorious, splendid years."

"Ten years! Surely not ten!"

"Yes, ten beautiful years."

"I wish to God I had come with you then. I might have been—well, I should have been saved some bumps and a ghastly cropper at last."

"'Cut it out,' Jack, as the boys say here. En avant! We never look back in this land, but ever forward. Oh, now isn't this worth while?" Again she swept her hand toward the scene below her. "Look at that waving line in the east, that broad sweep; and here at our left, those great, majestic things. I love them. I love every scar in their old grey faces. They have been good friends to me. But for them some days might have been hard to live through, but they were always there like friends, watching, understanding. They kept me steady."

"You must have had some difficult days, old girl, in this awful land. Yes, yes, I know it's glorious, especially on a day like this and in a light like this; but after all, you are away from the world, away from everybody, and shut off from everything, from life, art—how could you stick it?"

"Jack are you sympathising with me? Let me tell you your sympathy is wasted. I have had lonely days in this land, of course. When Tom was off on business—Oh! that man has been perfectly splendid. Jack! He's been—well, I can't tell you all he has been to me—father, mother, husband, chum, he's been to me, and more. And he's made good in the country, too. Now look again at this view. We always stop to look at it, Tom and I, from this point. Tell me if you have ever seen anything quite as wonderful!"

"Yes, it's glorious, a little like the veldt, with, of course, the mountains extra, and they do rather finish the thing in the grand style."

"Grand style, well, rather! A great traveller who has seen most of the world's beautiful spots told me he had never looked on anything quite so splendid as the view from here—so spacious, so varied, so majestic. Ah, I love it, and the country has been good to me!

"I don't mean physically only, but in every way—in body, soul and mind. And for Tom, too, the country has done much. In England, you know, he was just loafing, filling in time with one useless thing after another, and on the way to get fat and lazy. Here he is doing things, things worth while. His ranch is quite a success. Then he is always busy organising various sorts of industries in the country—dairying, lumbering and that sort of thing. He has introduced thoroughbred stock. He helps with the schools, the churches, the Agricultural Institutes. In short, he is doing his part to bring this country to its best. And this, you know, is the finest bit of all Canada!"

Her brother laughed. "Pardon me," he said, "there are so many of these 'finest bits.' In Nova Scotia, in Quebec, I have found them. The people of Ontario are certain that the 'finest bit' is in their province, while in British Columbia they are ready to fight if one suggests anything to the contrary."

"I know. I know. It is perfectly splendid of them. You know we Canadians are quite foolish about our country."

"WE Canadians!"

"Yes. WE Canadians. What else? We are quite mad about the future of our country. And that is why I wanted you to come out here, Jack. There is so much a man like you might do with your brains and training. Yes. Your Oxford training is none too good for this country, and your brain none too clever for this big work of laying the foundations of a great Empire. This is big enough for the biggest of you. Bigger, even, than the thing you were doing at home, Jack. Oh, I heard all about it!"

"You heard all about it? I hope not. I hope you have not heard of the awful mess I made of things."

"Nonsense, Jack! 'Forward' is the word here. Here is an Empire in the making, another Britain, greater, finer, and without the hideous inequalities, injustices and foolish class distinctions of the old."

"My God! Sybil, you sound like Lloyd George himself! Please don't recall that ghastly radicalism to me."

"Never mind what it sounds like. You will get it too. We all catch it here, especially Old Country folk. For instance, look away to the left there. See that little clump of buildings beside the lake just through the poplars. There is a family of Canadians typical of the best, the Gwynnes, our closest neighbours. Good Irish stock, they are. They came two years after we came. Lost their little bit of money. Suffered, my! how they must have suffered! though they were too proud to tell any of us. The father is a gentleman, finely educated, but with no business ability. The mother all gold and grit, heroic little woman who kept the family together. The eldest boy of fifteen or sixteen, rather delicate when he came, but fearfully plucky, has helped amazingly. He taught the school, putting his money into the farm year after year. While teaching the school he somehow managed to grip hold of the social life of this community in a wonderful way, preached for Mr. Rhye, taught a Bible Class for him, quite unique in its way; organised a kind of Literary-Social-Choral-Minstrel Club and has added tremendously to the life and gaiety of the neighbourhood. What we shall do when he leaves, I know not. You will like them, I am sure. We shall drop in there on our way, if you like."

"Ah, well, perhaps sometime later. They all sound rather terribly industrious and efficient for a mere slacker like myself."

Along the trail they galloped, following the dogs for a mile or so until checked by a full flowing stream.

"I say, Willow Creek is really quite in flood," said his sister. "The hot sun has brought down the snows, you know. The logs are running, too. We will have to go a bit carefully. Hold well up to the stream and watch the logs. Keep your eye on the bank opposite. No, no, keep up, follow me. Look out, or you will get into deep water. Keep to the right. There, that's better."

"I say," said her brother, as his horse clambered out of the swollen stream. "That's rather a close thing to a ducking. Awfully like the veldt streams, you know. Ice cold, too, I fancy."

"Ice cold, indeed, glacier water, you know, and these logs make it very awkward. The Gwynnes must be running down their timber and firewood. We might just run up and look in on them. It's only a mile or so. Nora will be there. She will be 'bossing the job,' as she says. It will be rather interesting."

"Well, I hope it is not too far, for I assure you I am getting quite ravenous."

"No, come along, there's a good trail here."

A smart canter brought them to a rather pretentious homestead with considerable barns and outbuildings attached. "This is the Switzers' place," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "German-Americans, old settlers and quite well off. The father owned the land on which Wolf Willow village stands. He made quite a lot of money in real estate—village lots and farm lands, you know. He is an excellent farmer and ambitious for his family—one son and one daughter. They are quite plain people. They live like—well, like Germans, you know. The mother is a regular hausfrau; the daughter, quite nice, plays the violin beautifully. It was from her young Gwynne got his violining. The son went to college in the States, then to Germany for a couple of years. He came back here a year ago, terribly German and terribly military, heel clicking, ram-rod back, and all that sort of thing. Musical, too, awfully clever; rather think he has political ambitions. We'll not go in to-day. Some day, perhaps. Indeed, we must be neighbourly in this country. But the Switzers are a little trying."

"Why know them at all?"

"There you are!" cried his sister. "Fancy living beside people in this country and not knowing them. Can't you see that we must not let things get awry that way? We must all pull together. Tom is fearfully strong on that, and he is right, too, I suppose, although it is trying at times. Now we begin to climb a bit here. Then there are good stretches further along where we can hurry."

But it seemed to her brother that the good stretches were rather fewer and shorter than the others, for the sun was overhead when they pulled up their horses, steaming and ready enough to halt, in a small clearing in the midst of a thick bit of forest. The timber was for the main part of soft woods, poplar, yellow and black, cottonwood, and further up among hills spruce and red pine. In the centre of the clearing stood a rough log cabin with a wide porch running around two sides. Upon this porch a young girl was to be seen busy over a cook stove. At the noise of the approaching horses the girl turned from her work and looked across the clearing at them.

"Heavens above! who is that, Sybil?" gasped her brother.

Mrs. Waring-Gaunt gave a delighted little cry. "Oh, my dear, you are really back." In a moment she was off her horse and rushing toward the girl with her arms outstretched. "Kathleen, darling! Is it you? And you have really grown, I believe! Or is it your hair? Come let me introduce you to my brother."

Jack Romayne was a young man with thirty years of experience of the normal life of the well-born Englishman, during which time he had often known what it was to have his senses stirred and his pulses quickened by the sight of one of England's fair women, than whom none of fresher and fairer beauty are to be found in all the world; yet never had he found himself anything but master of his speech and behaviour. But to-day, when, in obedience to his sister's call, he moved across the little clearing toward the girl standing at her side, he seemed to lose consciousness of himself and control of his powers of action. He was instead faintly conscious that a girl of tall and slender grace, with an aura of golden hair about a face lovelier than he had ever known, was looking at him out of eyes as blue as the prairie crocus and as shy and sweet, that she laid her hand in his as if giving him something of herself, that holding her hand how long he knew not, he found himself gazing through those eyes of translucent blue into a soul of unstained purity as one might gaze into a shrine, and that he continued gazing until the blue eyes clouded and the fair face flushed crimson, that then, without a word, he turned from her, thrilling with a new gladness which seemed to fill not only his soul but the whole world as well. When he came to himself he found his trembling fingers fumbling with the bridle of his horse. For a few moments he became aware of a blind rage possessing him and he cursed deeply his stupidity and the gaucherie of his manner. But soon he forgot his rage for thinking of her eyes and of what he had seen behind their translucent blue.

"My dear child," again exclaimed Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, "I declare you have actually grown taller and grown—a great many other things that I may not tell you. What have they done to you at that wonderful school? Did you love it?"

The girl flushed with a quick emotion. "Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, it was really wonderful. I had such a good time and every one was lovely to me. I did not know people could be so kind. But it is good to get back home again to them all, and to you, and to all this." She waved her hand to the forest about her.

"And who are up here to-day, and what are you doing?" inquired Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

"In the meantime I am preparing dinner," said the girl with a laugh.

"Dinner!" exclaimed Jack Romayne, who had meantime drawn near, determined to rehabilitate himself in the eyes of this girl as a man familiar with the decencies of polite society. "Dinner! It smells so good and we are desperately hungry."

"Yes," cried Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "My brother declared he was quite faint more than an hour ago, and now I am sure he is."

"Fairly ravenous."

"But I don't know," said the girl with serious anxiety on her face. "You see, we have only pork and fried potatoes, and Nora just shot a chicken—only one—and they are always so hungry. But we have plenty of bread and tea. Would you stay?"

"It sounds really very nice," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt.

"It would be awfully jolly of you, and I promise not to eat too much," said the young man. "I am actually faint with hunger, and a cup of tea appears necessary to revive me."

"Of course, stay," said the girl with quick sympathy. "We can't give you much, but we can give you something."

"Oh——ho!"

"O-h-o-o-o-h! O-h-o-o-o-h!" A loud call came from the woods.

"There's Nora," said Kathleen. "O-o-o-o-o-h! O-o-o-o-o-h!" The girl's answering call was like the winding of a silver horn. "Here she is."

Out from the woods, striding into the clearing, came a young girl dressed in workmanlike garb in short skirt, leggings and jersey, with a soft black hat on the black tumbled locks. "Hello, Kathleen, dinner ready? I'm famished. Oh, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt, glad to see you."

"And my brother, Nora, Mr. Jack Romayne, just come from England, and hungry as a bear."

"Just from England? And hungry? Well, we are glad to see you, Mr. Romayne." The girl came forward with a quick step and frankly offered her brown, strong hand. "We're awfully glad to see you, Mr. Romayne," she repeated. "I ought to be embarrassed, I know, only I am so hungry."

"Just my fix, Miss Nora," said the young man. "I am really anxious to be polite. I feel we should decline the invitation to dinner which your sister has pressed upon us; we know it is a shame to drop in on you like this all unprepared, but I am so hungry, and really that smell is so irresistible that I feel I simply cannot be polite."

"Don't!" cried the girl, "or rather, do, and stay. There's enough of something, and Joe will look after the horses." She put her hands to her lips and called, "J-o-o-e!"

A voice from the woods answered her, followed by Joe himself. "Here, Joe, take the horses and unsaddle them and tether them out somewhere."

Despite Kathleen's fears there was dinner enough for all.

"This is perfectly stunning!" said Romayne, glancing round the little clearing and up at the trees waving overhead, through the interstices of whose leafy canopy showed patches of blue sky. "Gorgeous, by Jove! Words are futile things for really great moments."

"Ripping," said Nora, smiling impudently into his face. "Awfully jolly! A-1! Top hole! That's the lot, I think, according to the best authorities. Do you know any others?"

"I beg pardon, what?" said Romayne, looking up from his fried pork and potatoes.

"Those are all I have learned in English at least," said Nora. "I am keen for some more. They are Oxford, I believe. Have you any others?"

Mr. Romayne diverted his attention from his dinner. "What is she talking about, Miss Gwynne? I confess to be entirely absorbed in these fried potatoes."

"Words, words, Mr. Romayne, vocabulary, adjectives," replied Nora.

"Ah," said Romayne, "but why should one worry about words, especially adjectives, when one has such divine realities as these to deal with?"

"Have some muffles, Mr. Romayne," said Nora.

"Muffles? Now what may muffles be?"

"Muffles are a cross between muffins and waffles."

"Please elucidate their nature and origin," said Mr. Romayne.

"Let me show you," said Kathleen. She sprang up, dived into the cabin and returned with a large, round, hard biscuit in her hand. "This is Hudson Bay hard tack, the stand-by of all western people—Hudson Bay freighters and cowboys, old timers and tenderfeet alike swear by it. See, you moisten it slightly in water, fry it in boiling fat, sugar it and keep hot till served. Thus Hudson Bay hard tack becomes muffles."

"Marvellous!" exclaimed Mr. Romayne, "and truly delicious! And to think that the Savoy chef knows nothing about muffles! But now that my first faintness is removed and the mystery of muffles is solved, may I inquire just what you are doing up here to-day, Miss Gwynne? What is the business on hand, I mean?"

"Oh, Nora is getting out some logs for building and firewood for next winter. The logs, you see, are cut during the winter and hauled to the dump there."

"Dump!" exclaimed Mr. Romayne faintly.

"Yes. The bank there where you dump the logs into the creek below."

"But what exactly has Miss Nora to do with all this?"

"I?" enquired Nora, "I only boss the job."

"Don't you believe her," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "I happen to remember one winter day coming upon this young lady in these very woods driving her team and hauling logs to the dump while Sam and Joe did the cutting. Ask the boys there? And why shouldn't she?" continued Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "She can run a farm, with garden, pigs and poultry thrown in; open a coal mine and—"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Nora, "the boys here do it all. Mother furnishes the head work."

"Oh, Nora!" protested Kathleen, "you know you manage everything. Isn't that true, boys?"

"She's the hull works herself," said Sam. "Ain't she, Joe?"

"You bet yeh," said Joe, husky with the muffles.

"She's a corker," continued Sam, "double compressed, compensating, forty horsepower, ain't she, Joe?"

"You bet yeh!" adding, for purpose of emphasis, "By gar!"

"Six cylinder, self-starter," continued Sam with increasing enthusiasm.

"Self-starter," echoed Joe, going off into a series of choking chuckles. "Sure t'ing, by gar!" Joe, having safely disposed of the muffles, gave himself up to unrestrained laughter, throwing back his head, slapping his knees and repeating at intervals, "Self-starter, by gar!"

So infectious was his laughter that the whole company joined in.

"Cut it out, boys," said Nora. "You are all talking rot, you know; and what about you," she added, turning swiftly upon her sister. "Who runs the house, I'd like to know, and looks after everything inside, and does the sewing? This outfit of mine, for instance? And her own outfit?"

"Oh, Nora," protested Kathleen, the colour rising in her face.

"Did you make your own costume?" inquired Mr. Romayne.

"She did that," said Nora, "and mine and mother's, and she makes father's working shirts."

"Oh, Nora, stop, please. You know I do very little."

"She makes the butter as well."

"They're a pair," said Sam in a low growl, but perfectly audible to the company, "a regular pair, eh, Joe?"

"Sure t'ing," replied Joe, threatening to go off again into laughter, but held in check by a glance from Nora.

For an hour they lingered over the meal. Then Nora, jumping up quickly, took Mrs. Waring-Gaunt with her to superintend the work at the dump, leaving Mr. Romayne reclining on the grass smoking his pipe in abandoned content, while Kathleen busied herself clearing away and washing up the dishes.

"May I help?" inquired Mr. Romayne, when the others had gone.

"Oh, no," replied Kathleen. "Just rest where you are, please; just take it easy; I'd really rather you would, and there's nothing to do."

"I am not an expert at this sort of thing," said Mr. Romayne, "but at least I can dry dishes. I learned that much on the veldt."

"In South Africa? You were in the war?" replied Kathleen, giving him a towel.

"Yes, I had a go at it."

"It must have been terrible—to think of actually killing men."

"It is not pleasant," replied Romayne, shrugging his shoulders, "but it has to be done sometimes."

"Oh, do you think so? It does not seem as if it should be necessary at any time," said the girl with great earnestness. "I can't believe it is either right or necessary ever to kill men; and as for the Boer War, don't you think everybody agrees now that it was unnecessary?"

Mr. Romayne was always prepared to defend with the ardour of a British soldier the righteousness of every war in which the British Army has ever been engaged. But somehow he found it difficult to conduct an argument in favour of war against this girl who stood fronting him with a look of horror in her face.

"Well," said Mr. Romayne, "I believe there is something to be said on both sides. No doubt there were blunders in the early part of the trouble, but eventually war had to come."

"But that's just it," cried the girl. "Isn't that the way it is always? In the early stages of a quarrel it is so easy to come to an understanding and to make peace; but after the quarrel has gone on, then war becomes inevitable. If only every dispute could be submitted to the judgment of some independent tribunal. Nations are just like people. They see things solely from their own point of view. Do you know, Mr. Romayne, there is no subject upon which I feel so keenly as upon the subject of war. I just loathe and hate and dread the thought of war. I think perhaps I inherit this. My mother, you know, belongs to the Friends, and she sees so clearly the wickedness and the folly of war. And don't you think that all the world is seeing this more clearly to-day than ever before?"

There was nothing new in this argument or in this position to Mr. Romayne, but somehow, as he looked at the girl's eager, enthusiastic face, and heard her passionate denunciation of war, he found it difficult to defend the justice of war under any circumstances whatever.

"I entirely agree with you, Miss Gwynne, that war is utterly horrible, that it is silly, that it is wicked. I would rather not discuss it with you, but I can't help feeling that there are circumstances that make it necessary and right for men to fight."

"You don't wish to discuss this with me?" said Kathleen. "I am sorry, for I have always wished to hear a soldier who is also"—the girl hesitated for a moment—"a gentleman and a Christian—"

"Thank you, Miss Gwynne," said Romayne, with quiet earnestness.

"Discuss the reasons why war is ever necessary."

"It is a very big subject," said Mr. Romayne, "and some day I should like to give you my point of view. There are multitudes of people in Britain to-day, Miss Gwynne, who would agree with you. Lots of books have been written on both sides. I have listened to hours and hours of discussion, so that you can easily see that there is much to be said on both sides. I always come back, however, to the point that among nations of similar ethical standards and who are equally anxious to preserve the peace of the world, arbitration as a method of settling disputes ought to be perfectly simple and easy. It is only when you have to deal with nations whose standards of ethics are widely dissimilar or who are possessed with another ambition than that of preserving the peace of the world that you get into difficulty."

"I see your point," replied Kathleen, "but I also see that just there you allow for all sorts of prejudice to enter and for the indulgence in unfair argument and special pleading. But there, we are finished," she said, "and you do not wish to discuss this just now."

"Some time, Miss Gwynne, we shall have this out, and I have some literature on the subject that I should like to give you."

"And so have I," cried the girl, with a smile that rendered Mr. Romayne for some moments quite incapable of consecutive thought. "And now shall we look up the others?"

At the dump they found Joe and Sam rolling the logs, which during the winter had been piled high upon the bank, down the steep declivity or "dump" into the stream below. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt and Nora were seated on a log beside them engaged in talk.

"May I inquire if you are bossing the job as usual?" said Mr. Romayne, after he had watched the operation for a few moments.

"Oh, no, there's no bossing going on to-day. But," said the girl, "I rather think the boys like to have me around."

"I don't wonder," said Mr. Romayne, enthusiastically.

"Are you making fun of me, Mr. Romayne?" said the girl, her face indicating that she was prepared for battle.

"God forbid," replied Mr. Romayne, fervently.

"Not a bit of it, Nora dear," said his sister. "He is simply consumed with envy. He has just come from a country, you know, where only the men do things; I mean things that really count. And it makes him furiously jealous to see a young woman calmly doing things that he knows quite well he could not attempt to do."

"Quite true," replied her brother. "I am humbled to the ground at my own all to obvious ineptitude, and am lost in admiration of the marvellous efficiency of the young ladies of Canada whom it has been my good fortune to meet."

Nora glanced at him suspiciously. "You talk well," she said. "I half believe you're just making fun of us."

"Not a bit, Nora, not a bit," said his sister. "It is as I have said before. The man is as jealous as he can be, and, like all men, he hates to discover himself inferior in any particular to a woman. But we must be going. I am so glad you are home again, dear," she said, turning to Kathleen. "We shall hope to see a great deal of you. Thank you for the delightful lunch. It was so good of you to have us."

"Yes, indeed," added the young man. "You saved my life. I had just about reached the final stage of exhaustion. I, too, hope to see you again very soon and often, for you know we must finish that discussion and settle that question."

"What question is that," inquired his sister, "if I may ask?"

"Oh, the old question," said her brother, "the eternal question—war."

"I suppose," said Nora, "Kathleen has been giving you some of her peace talk. I want you to know, Mr. Romayne, that I don't agree with her in the least, and I am quite sure you don't either."

"I am not so sure of that," replied the young man. "We have not finished it out yet. I feel confident, however, that we shall come to an agreement on it."

"I hope not," replied Nora, "for in that case you would become a pacifist, for Kathleen, just like mother, you know, is a terrible peace person. Indeed, our family is divided on that question—Daddy and I opposed to the rest. And you know pacifists have this characteristic, that they are always ready to fight."

"Yes," said her sister. "We are always ready to fight for peace. But do not let us get into that discussion now. I shall walk with you a little way."

Arm in arm she and Mrs. Waring-Gaunt walked down the steep trail, Mr. Romayne following behind, leading the horses. As they walked together, Mrs. Waring-Gaunt talked to the girl of her brother.

"You know he was in the Diplomatic Service, went in after the South African War, and did awfully well there in the reconstruction work, was very popular with the Boers, though he had fought them in the war. He got to know their big men, and some of them are really big men. As a matter of fact, he became very fond of them and helped the Government at Home to see things from their point of view. After that he went to the Continent, was in Italy for a while and then in Germany, where, I believe, he did very good work. He saw a good deal of the men about the Kaiser. He loathed the Crown Prince, I believe, as most of our people there do. Suddenly he was recalled. He refused, of course, to talk about it, but I understand there was some sort of a row. I believe he lost his temper with some exalted personage. At any rate, he was recalled, chucked the whole service, and came out here. He felt awfully cut up about it. And now he has no faith in the German Government, says they mean war. He's awfully keen on preparation and that sort of thing. I thought I would just tell you, especially since I heard you had been discussing war with him."

As they neared the Switzer place they saw a young man standing on the little pier which jutted out into the stream with a pike-pole in his hand, keeping the logs from jambing at the turn.

"It's Ernest Switzer," cried Kathleen. "I have not seen him for ever so long. How splendidly he is looking! Hello, Ernest!" she cried, waving her hand and running forward to meet him, followed by the critical eyes of Jack Romayne.

The young man came hurrying toward her. "Kathleen!" he cried. "Is it really you?" He threw down his pole as he spoke and took her hand in both of his, the flush on his fair face spreading to the roots of his hair.

"You know Mrs. Waring-Gaunt," said Kathleen to him, for he paid no attention at all to the others. Mrs. Waring-Gaunt acknowledged Switzer's heel clicks, as also did her brother when introduced.

"You have been keeping the logs running, Ernest, I see. That is very good of you," said Kathleen.

"Yes, there was the beginning of a nice little jamb here," said Switzer. "They are running right enough now. But when did you return?" he continued, dropping into a confidential tone and turning his back upon the others. "Do you know I have not seen you for nine months?"

"Nine months?" said Kathleen. "I was away seven months."

"Yes, but I was away two months before you went. You forget that," he added reproachfully. "But I do not forget. Nine months—nine long months. And are you glad to be back, Kathleen, glad to see all your friends again, glad to see me?"

"I am glad to be at home, Ernest, glad to see all of my friends, of course, glad to get to the West again, to the woods here and the mountains and all."

"And you did not come in to see us as you passed," gazing at her with reproachful eyes and edging her still further away from the others.

"Oh, we intended to come in on our way back."

"Let's move on," said Romayne to his sister.

"We must be going, Kathleen dear," said Mrs. Waring-Gaunt. "You will soon be coming to see us?"

"Yes, indeed, you may be sure. It is so good to see you," replied the girl warmly, as Mrs. Waring-Gaunt kissed her good-bye. "Good-bye, Mr. Romayne; we must finish our discussion another time."

"Always at your service," replied Mr. Romayne, "although I am rather afraid of you. Thank you again for your hospitality. Good-bye." He held her hand, looking down into the blue depths of her eyes until as before the crimson in her face recalled him. "Good-bye. This has been a wonderful day to me." He mounted his horse, lifted his hat, and rode off after his sister.

"What sort of a chap is the Johnnie?" said Jack to his sister as they rode away.

"Not a bad sort at all; very bright fellow, quite popular in this community with the young fellows. He has lots of money, you know, and spends it. Of course, he is fearfully German, military style and all that."

"Seems to own that girl, eh?" said Jack, glancing back over his shoulder at the pair.

"Oh, the two families are quite intimate. Ernest and his sister were in Larry's musical organisations and they are quite good friends."

"By Jove, Sybil, she is wonderful! Why didn't you give me a hint?"

"I did. But really, she has come on amazingly. That college in Winnipeg—"

"Oh, college! It is not a question of college!" said her brother impatiently. "It's herself. Why, Sybil, think of that girl in London in a Worth frock. But no! That would spoil her. She is better just as she is. Jove, she completely knocked me out! I made a fool of myself."

"She has changed indeed," said his sister. "She is a lovely girl and so simple and unaffected. I have come really to love her. We must see a lot of her."

"But where did she get that perfectly charming manner? Do you realise what a perfectly stunning girl she is? Where did she get that style of hers?"

"You must see her mother, Jack. She is a charming woman, simple, quiet, a Quaker, I believe, but quite beautiful manners. Her father, too, is a gentleman, a Trinity man, I understand."

"Well," said her brother with a laugh, "I foresee myself falling in love with that girl in the most approved style."

"You might do worse," replied his sister, "though I doubt if you are not too late."

"Why? That German Johnnie?"

"Well, it is never wise to despise the enemy. He really is a fine chap, his prospects are very good; he has known her for a long while, and he is quite mad about her."

"But, good Lord, Sybil, he's a German!"

"A German," said his sister, "yes. But what difference does that make? He is a German, but he is also a Canadian. We are all Canadians here whatever else we may be or have ever been. We are all sorts and classes, high and low, rich and poor, and of all nationalities—Germans, French, Swedes, Galicians, Russians—but we all shake down into good Canadian citizens. We are just Canadians, and that is good enough for me. We are loyal to Canada first."

"You may be right as far as other nationalities are concerned, but, Sybil, believe me, you do not know the German. I know him and there is no such thing as a German loyal to Canada first."

"But, Jack, you are so terribly insular. You must really get rid of all that. I used to think like you, but here we have got to the place where we can laugh at all that sort of thing."

"I know, Sybil. I know. They are laughing in England to-day at Roberts and Charlie Beresford. But I know Germany and the German mind and the German aim and purpose, and I confess to you that I am in a horrible funk at the state of things in our country. And this chap Switzer—you say he has been in Germany for two years? Well, he has every mark characteristic of the German. He reproduces the young German that I have seen the world over—in Germany, in the Crown Prince's coterie (don't I know them?), in South Africa, in West Africa, in China. He has every mark, the same military style, the same arrogant self-assertion, the same brutal disregard of the ordinary decencies."

"Why, Jack, how you talk! You are actually excited."

"Did you not notice his manner with that girl? He calmly took possession of her and ignored us who were of her party, actually isolated her from us."

"But, Jack, this seems to me quite outrageous."

"Yes, Sybil, and there are more like you. But I happen to know from experience what I am talking about. The elementary governing principle of life for the young German of to-day is very simple and is easily recognised, and it is this: when you see anything you want, go for it and take it, no matter if all the decencies of life are outraged."

"Jack, I cannot, frankly, I cannot agree with you in regard to young Switzer. I know him fairly well and—"

"Let's not talk about it, Sybil," said her brother, quietly.

"Oh, all right, Jack."

They rode on in silence, Romayne gloomily keeping his eye on the trail before him until they neared the Gwynne gate, when the young man exclaimed abruptly:

"My God, it would be a crime!"

"Whatever do you mean, Jack?"

"To allow that brute to get possession of that lovely girl."

"But, Jack," persisted his sister. "Brute?"

"Sybil, I have seen them with women, their own and other women; and, now listen to me, I have yet to see the German who regards or treats his frau as an English gentleman treats his wife. That is putting it mildly."

"Oh, Jack!"

"It ought to be stopped."

"Well, stop it then."

"I wish to God I could," said her brother.



CHAPTER VIII

YOU FORGOT ME

The Lakeside House, substantially built of logs, with "frame" kitchen attached, stood cosily among the clump of trees, poplar and spruce, locally described as a bluff. The bluff ran down to the little lake a hundred yards away, itself an expansion of Wolf Willow Creek. The whitewashed walls gleaming through its festoons of Virginia creeper, a little lawn bordered with beds filled with hollyhocks, larkspur, sweet-william and other old-fashioned flowers and flanked by a heavy border of gorgeous towering sunflowers, gave a general air, not only of comfort and thrift, but of refinement as well, too seldom found in connection with the raw homesteads of the new western country.

At a little distance from the house, at the end of a lane leading through the bluff, were visible the stables, granary and other outhouses, with corral attached.

Within, the house fulfilled the promise of its external appearance and surroundings. There was dignity without stiffness, comfort without luxury, simplicity without any suggestion of the poverty that painfully obtrudes itself.

At the open window whose vine shade at once softened the light and invited the summer airs, sat Mrs. Gwynne, with her basket of mending at her side. Eight years of life on an Alberta ranch had set their mark upon her. The summers' suns and winters' frosts and the eternal summer and winter winds had burned and browned the soft, fair skin of her earlier days. The anxieties inevitable to the struggle with poverty had lined her face and whitened her hair. But her eyes shone still with the serene light of a soul that carries within it the secret of triumph over the carking cares of life.

Seated beside her was her eldest daughter Kathleen, sewing; and stretched upon the floor lay Nora, frankly idle and half asleep, listening to the talk of the other two. Their talk turned upon the theme never long absent from their thought—that of ways and means.

"Tell you what, Mummie," droned Nora, lazily extending her lithe young body to its utmost limits, "there is a simple way out of our never ending worries, namely, a man, a rich man, if handsome, so much the better, but rich he must be, for Kathleen. They say they are hanging round the Gateway City of the West in bunches. How about it, Kate?"

"My dear Nora," gently chided her mother, "I wish you would not talk in that way. It is not quite nice. In my young days—"

"In your young days I know just exactly what happened, Mother. There was always a long queue of eligible young men dangling after the awfully lovely young Miss Meredith, and before she was well out of her teens the gallant young Gwynne carried her off."

"We never talked about those things, my dear," said her mother, shaking her head at her.

"You didn't need to, Mother."

"Well, if it comes to that, Nora," said her sister, "I don't think you need to, very much, either. You have only got to look at—"

"Halt!" cried Nora, springing to her feet. "But seriously, Mother dear, I think we can weather this winter right enough. Our food supply is practically visible. We have oats enough for man and beast, a couple of pigs to kill, a steer also, not to speak of chickens and ducks. We shall have some cattle to sell, and if our crops are good we ought to be able to pay off those notes. Oh, why will Dad buy machinery?"

"My dear," said her mother with gentle reproach, "your father says machinery is cheaper than men and we really cannot do without machines."

"That's all right, Mother. I'm not criticising father. He is a perfect dear and I am awfully glad he has got that Inspectorship."

"Yes," replied her mother, "your father is suited to his new work and likes it. And Larry will be finishing his college this year, I think. And he has earned it too," continued the mother. "When I think of all he has done and how generously he has turned his salary into the family fund, and how often he has been disappointed—" Here her voice trembled a little.

Nora dropped quickly to her knees, taking her mother in her arms. "Don't we all know, Mother, what he has done? Shall I ever forget those first two awful years, the winter mornings when he had to get up before daylight to get the house warm, and that awful school. Every day he had to face it, rain, sleet, or forty below. How often I have watched him in the school, always so white and tired. But he never gave up. He just would not give up. And when those big boys were unruly—I could have killed those boys—he would always keep his temper and joke and jolly them into good order. And all the time I knew how terribly his head was aching. What are you sniffling about, Kate?"

"I think it was splendid, just splendid, Nora," cried Kathleen, swiftly wiping away her tears. "But I can't help crying, it was all so terrible. He never thought of himself, and year after year he gave up his money—"

"Hello!" cried a voice at the door. "Who gave up his money and to whom and is there any more around?" His eye glanced around the group. "What's up, people? Mummie, are these girls behaving badly? Let me catch them at it!" The youth stood smiling down upon them. His years in the West had done much for him. He was still slight, but though his face was pale and his body thin, his movements suggested muscular strength and sound health. He had not grown handsome. His features were irregular, mouth wide, cheek bones prominent, ears large; yet withal there was a singular attractiveness about his appearance and manner. His eyes were good; grey-blue, humorous, straight-looking eyes they were, deep set under overhanging brows, and with a whimsical humour ever lingering about them; over the eyes a fore-head, broad, suggesting intellect, and set off by heavy, waving, dark hair.

"Who gave his money? I insist upon knowing. No reply, eh? I have evidently come upon a deep and deadly plot. Mother?—no use asking you. Kathleen, out with it."

"You gave your money," burst forth Nora in a kind of passion as she flew at him, "and everything else. But now that's all over. You are going to finish your college course this year, that's what."

"Oh, that's it, eh? I knew there was some women's scheme afloat. Well, children," said the youth, waving his hand over them in paternal benediction, "since this thing is up we might as well settle it 'right here and n-a-o-w,' as our American friend, Mr. Ralph Waldo Farwell, would say, and a decent sort he is too. I have thought this all out. Why should not a man gifted with a truly great brain replete with grey matter (again in the style of the aforesaid Farwell) do the thinking for his wimmin folk? Why not? Hence the problem is already solved. The result is hereby submitted, not for discussion but for acceptance, for acceptance you understand, to-wit and namely, as Dad's J. P. law books have it: I shall continue the school another year."

"You shan't," shouted Nora, seizing him by the arm and shaking him with all the strength of her vigorous young body.

"Larry, dear!" said his mother.

"Oh, Larry!" exclaimed Kathleen.

"We shall then be able to pay off all our indebtedness," continued Larry, ignoring their protests, "and that is a most important achievement. This new job of Dad's means an addition to our income. The farm management will remain in the present capable hands. No, Miss Nora, I am not thinking of the boss, but of the head, the general manager." He waved his hand toward his mother. "The only change will be in the foreman. A new appointment will be made, one who will bring to her task not only experience and with it a practical knowledge, but the advantage of intellectual discipline recently acquired at a famous educational centre; and the whole concern will go on with its usual verve, swing, snap, toward another year's success. Then next year me for the giddy lights of the metropolitan city and the sacred halls of learning."

"And me," said Nora, "what does your high mightiness plan for me this winter, pray?"

"Not quite so much truculence, young lady," replied her brother. "For you, the wide, wide world, a visit to the seat of light and learning already referred to, namely, Winnipeg."

For one single moment Nora looked at him. Then, throwing back her head, she said with unsteady voice: "Not this time, old boy. One man can lead a horse to water but ten cannot make him drink, and you may as well understand now as later that this continual postponement of your college career is about to cease. We have settled it otherwise. Kathleen will take your school—an awful drop for the kids, but what joy for the big boys. She and I will read together in the evenings. The farm will go on. Sam and Joe are really very good and steady; Joe at least, and Sam most of the time. Dad's new work will not take him from home so much, he says. And next year me for the fine arts and the white lights of Winnipeg. That's all that needs to be said."

"I think, dear," said the mother, looking at her son, "Nora is right."

"Now, Mother," exclaimed Larry, "I don't like to hear your foot come down just yet. I know that tone of finality, but listen—"

"We have listened," said Kathleen, "and we know we are right. I shall take the school, Mr. Farwell—"

"Mr. Farwell, eh?—" exclaimed Nora significantly.

"Mr. Farwell has promised me," continued Kathleen, "indeed has offered me, the school. Nora and I can study together. I shall keep up my music. Nora will keep things going outside, mother will look after every thing as usual, Dad will help us outside and in. So that's settled."

"Settled!" cried her brother. "You are all terribly settling. It seems to me that you apparently forget—"

Once more the mother interposed. "Larry, dear, Kathleen has put it very well. Your father and I have talked it over"—the young people glanced at each other and smiled at this ancient and well-worn phrase—"we have agreed that it is better that you should finish your college this winter. Of course we know you would suggest delay, but we are anxious that you should complete your course."

"But, Mother, listen—" began Larry.

"Nonsense, Larry, 'children, obey your parents' is still valid," said Nora. "What are you but a child after all, though with your teaching and your choral society conducting, and your nigger show business, and your preaching in the church, and your popularity, you are getting so uplifted that there's no holding you. Just make up your mind to do your duty, do you hear? Your duty. Give up this selfish determination to have your own way, this selfish pleasing of yourself." Abruptly she paused, rushed at him, threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him. "You darling old humbug," she said with a very unsteady voice. "There, I will be blubbering in a minute. I am off for the timber lot. What do you say, Katty? It's cooler now. We'll go up the cool road. Are you coming?"

"Yes; wait until I change."

"All right, I will saddle up. You coming, Larry?"

"No, I'll catch up later."

"Now, Mother," warned Nora, "I know his ways and wiles. Remember your duty to your children. You are also inclined to be horribly selfish. Be firm. Hurry up, Kate."

Left alone with his mother, Larry went deliberately to work with her. Well he knew the immovable quality of her resolution when once her mind was made up. Patiently, quietly, steadily, he argued with her, urging Nora's claims for a year at college.

"She needs a change after her years of hard work."

Her education was incomplete; the ground work was sound enough, but she had come to the age when she must have those finishing touches that girls require to fit them for their place in life. "She is a splendid girl, but in some ways still a child needing discipline; in other ways mature, too mature. She ought to have her chance and ought to have it now." One never knew what would happen in the case of girls.

His mother sighed. "Poor Nora, she has had discipline enough of a kind, and hard discipline it has been indeed for you all."

"Nonsense, Mother, we have had a perfectly fine time together, all of us. God knows if any one has had a hard time it is not the children in this home. I do not like to think of those awful winters, Mother, and of the hard time you had with us all."

"A hard time!" exclaimed his mother. "I, a hard time, and with you all here beside me, and all so well and strong? What more could I want?" The amazed surprise in her face stirred in her son a quick rush of emotion.

"Oh, Mother, Mother, Mother," he whispered in her ear. "There is no one like you. Did you ever in all your life seek one thing for yourself, one thing, one little thing? Away back there in Ontario you slaved and slaved and went without things yourself that all the rest of us might get them. Here it has been just the same. Haven't I seen your face and your hands, your poor hands,"—here the boy's voice broke with an indignant passion—"blue with the cold when you could not get furs to protect them? Never, never shall I forget those days." The boy stopped abruptly, unable to go on.

Quickly the mother drew her son toward her. "Larry, my son, my son, you must never think that a hard time. Did ever a woman have such joy as I? When I think of other mothers and of other children, and then think of you all here, I thank God every day and many times a day that he has given us each other. And, Larry, my son, let me say this, and you will remember it afterwards. You have been a continual joy to me, always, always. You have never given me a moment's anxiety or pain. Remember that. I continually thank God for you. You have made my life very happy."

The boy put his face down on her lap with his arms tight around her waist. Never in their life together had they been able to open these deep, sacred chambers in their souls to each other's gaze. For some moments he remained thus, then lifting up his face, he kissed her again and again, her forehead, her eyes, her lips. Then rising to his feet, he stood with his usual smile about his lips. "You always beat me. But will you not think this all over again carefully, and we will do what you say? But will you promise, Mother, to think it over again and look at my side of it too?"

"Yes, Larry, I promise," said his mother. "Now run after the girls, and I shall have tea ready for you."

As Larry rode down the lane he saw the young German, Ernest Switzer, and his sister riding down the trail and gave them a call. They pulled up and waited.

"Hello, Ernest; whither bound? How are you, Dorothea?"

"Home," said the young man, "and you?"

"Going up by the timber lot, around by the cool road. The girls are on before."

"Ah, so?" said the young man, evidently waiting for an invitation.

"Do you care to come? It's not much longer that way," said Larry.

"I might," said the young man. Then looking doubtfully at his sister, "You cannot come very well, Dorothea, can you?"

"No, that is, I'm afraid not," she replied. She was a pretty girl with masses of yellow hair, light blue eyes, a plump, kindly face and a timid manner. As she spoke she, true to her German training, evidently waited for an indication of her brother's desire.

"There are the cows, you know," continued her brother.

"Yes, there are the cows," her face clouding as she spoke.

"Oh, rot!" said Larry, "you don't milk until evening, and we get back before tea. Come along."

Still the girl hesitated. "Well," said her brother brusquely, "do you want to come?"

She glanced timidly at his rather set face and then at Larry. "I don't know. I am afraid that—"

"Oh, come along, Dorothea, do you hear me telling you? You will be in plenty of time and your brother will help you with the milking."

"Ernest help! Oh, no!"

"Not on your life!" said that young man. "I never milk. I haven't for years. Well, come along then," he added in a grudging voice.

"That is fine," said Larry. "But, Dorothea, you ought to make him learn to milk. Why shouldn't he? The lazy beggar. Do you mean to say that he never helps with the milking?"

"Oh, never," said Dorothea.

"Our men don't do women's work," said Ernest. "It is not the German way. It is not fitting."

"And what about women doing men's work?" said Larry. "It seems to me I have seen German women at work in the fields up in the Settlement."

"I have no doubt you have," replied Ernest stiffly. "It is the German custom."

"You make me tired," said Larry, "the German custom indeed! Does that make it right?"

"For us, yes," replied Ernest calmly.

"But you are Canadians, are you not? Are there to be different standards in Canada for different nationalities?"

"Oh, the Germans will follow the German way. Because it is German, and demonstrated through experience to be the best. Look at our people. Look at our prosperity at home, at our growth in population, at our wealth, at our expansion in industry and commerce abroad. Look at our social conditions and compare them with those in this country or in any other country in the world. Who will dare to say that German methods and German customs are not best, at least for Germans? But let us move a little faster, otherwise we shall never catch up with them." He touched his splendid broncho into a sharp gallop, the other horses following more slowly behind.

"He is very German, my brother," said Dorothea. "He thinks he is Canadian, but he is not the same since he went over Home. He is talking all the time about Germany, Germany, Germany. I hate it." Her blue eyes flashed fire and her usually timid voice vibrated with an intense feeling. Larry gazed at her in astonishment.

"You may look at me, Larry," she cried. "I am German but I do not like the German ways. I like the Canadian ways. The Germans treat their women like their cows. They feed them well, they keep them warm because—because—they have calves—I mean the cows—and the women have kids. I hate the German ways. Look at my mother. What is she in that house? Day and night she has worked, day and night, saving money—and what for? For Ernest. Running to wait on him and on Father and they never know it. It's women's work with us to wait on men, and that is the way in the Settlement up there. Look at your mother and you. Mein Gott! I could kill them, those men!"

"Why, Dorothea, you amaze me. What's up with you? I never heard you talk like this. I never knew that you felt like this."

"No, how could you know? Who would tell you? Not Ernest," she replied bitterly.

"But, Dorothea, you are happy, are you not?"

"Happy, I was until I knew better, till two years ago when I saw your mother and you with her. Then Ernest came back thinking himself a German officer—he is an officer, you know—and the way he treated our mother and me!"

"Treated your mother! Surely he is not unkind to your mother?" Larry had a vision of a meek, round-faced, kindly, contented woman, who was obviously proud of her only son.

"Kind, kind," cried Dorothea, "he is kind as German sons are kind. But you cannot understand. Why did I speak to you of this? Yes, I will tell you why," she added, apparently taking a sudden resolve. "Let's go slowly. Ernest is gone anyway. I will tell you why. Before Ernest went away he was more like a Canadian boy. He was good to his mother. He is good enough still but—oh, it is so hard to show you. I have seen you and your mother. You would not let your mother brush your boots for you, you would not sit smoking and let her carry in wood in the winter time, you would not stand leaning over the fence and watch your mother milk the cow. Mein Gott! Ernest, since he came back—the women are only good for waiting on him, for working in the house or on the farm. His wife, she will not work in the fields; Ernest is too rich for that. But she will not be like"—here the girl paused abruptly, a vivid colour dyeing her fair skin—"like your wife. I would die sooner than marry a German man."

"But Ernest is not like that, Dorothea. He is not like that with my sisters. Why, he is rather the other way, awfully polite and all that sort of thing, you know."