e barn door. Mr. Wilson had been away from
home for some weeks, and we had been somewhat worried lest he should
not return in time for our proving up. Evidently Joe had just been
telling him this, for, as I came near them, he was saying in his
hearty way: "No, sir; your young ladies needn't 'a' been a mite
worried for fear of my not getting around in time. I was bound to come
when they wanted me, and wife's been keeping me posted about their
notice. I told her I'd leave whatever I had on hand and come in time,
whether or no." He was a large man. Joe had resigned the reaper seat
to him and had ridden home himself standing on one of the cross-bars.
He was slowly and cautiously backing down from the high seat as I
stopped beside the reaper. When his feet were fairly on the ground he
turned to greet me: "Why, what's been happening to you, little girl?
Joe, you didn't tell me that one of your young ladies was sick!"

Joe had begun unharnessing the team; he was tying up the lines, but
dropped them as Mr. Wilson spoke, and came around to my side; just
then, too, Jessie joined us; she stood with one hand on old Joe's
shoulder, while I again told of the incursion of cattle on our fields.
I think that she feared some terrible outburst of rage from the old
man who had toiled so faithfully in those fields, and had taken such
honest pride in the rich promise of an abundant harvest. If so, her
fears were groundless. Joe's sole remark, as he went on with the work
of caring for the horses, was:

"Mought jess as well a' spared de trouble ob gettin' de reaper fixed,
hit 'pears."

Instinctively, I felt that he was so sure, he understood so well by
whose agency the ruin had been wrought that he disdained to ask a
question. What had taken place was simply a thing to be borne, like
martyrdom.

But Mr. Wilson was not committed to a policy of silence; he had a
good deal to say, and what he said was directly to the point.

"Crops plumb ruined, you say, Miss Leslie?"

"Oh, yes; entirely; I think the whole herd must have been there; not
feeding quietly so much as tearing through--"

"You say the whole herd? Know of any herd, now, that you could spot?"

"It was Mr. Horton's herd; we all know his brand."

"R, half-circle, A; yes. Now, young folks,"--he paused to roll his
eyes impressively from one to the other of us--"I'll tell you what you
want to do about this affair. You want to keep still; to keep still!"

"And be ruined!" cried Jes