fed the curtest of replies, and to him he made
only a slight concession.

"Guess this is my racket," he said, with just a touch of invalid
peevishness. "Mebbe I'll see it thro' my own way--later."

Ma and Rube refrained from question. It was theirs to help, and they knew
that if there was anything which Seth had to tell he would tell it in his
own time.

But time passed on, and no explanation was forthcoming. Taking their meals
together in the kitchen, or passing quiet evenings in the parlor while
their patient slept up-stairs, Ma and Rube frequently discussed the
matter, but their speculations led them nowhere. Still, as the sick man
slowly progressed toward recovery, they were satisfied. It was all they
asked.

Rube accepted the burden of the work thus thrust upon him in cheerful
silence. There was something horse-like in his willingness for work. He
just put forth a double exertion without one single thought of self.

Every week the English mail brought Ma a letter from Rosebud, and ever
since Seth had taken up his abode in the sick-room the opening and reading
of these long, girlish epistles had become a function reserved for his
entertainment. It was a brief ray of sunshine in the gray monotony of his
long imprisonment. On these occasions, generally Tuesdays, the entire
evening would be spent with the invalid.

They were happy, single-hearted little gatherings. Ma was seated at the
bedside in a great armchair before a table on which the letter was spread
out. An additional lamp was requisitioned for the occasion, and her
glasses were polished until they shone and gleamed in the yellow light.
Seth was propped up, and Rube, large, silent, like a great reflective St.
Bernard dog, reclined ponderously at the foot of the wooden bedstead. The
reading proceeded with much halting and many corrections and rereadings,
but with never an interruption from the attentive audience.

The men listened to the frivolous, inconsequent gossip of the girl, now
thousands of miles away from them, with a seriousness, a delighted
happiness that nothing else in their lives could have afforded them.
Comment came afterward, and usually from Ma, the two men merely
punctuating her remarks with affirmative or negative monosyllables.

It was on the receipt of one of these letters that Ma saw her way to a
small scheme which had been slowly revolving itself in her brain ever
since Seth was wounded. Seth had been in the habit of enclosing occ