The storm had blown over long before his buggy went rattling down that
long hill, and he sat with the reins dangling neglected between his
knees and squinted up at the stars.

"I always did consider I'd been pretty lucky," he confided after a
time to the plump mare's lazily flopping ears, "never gettin' mixed up
in any matrimonial tangle, so to speak. But now--now I ain't quite so
sure." A lonesome note crept into the querulous voice. "Maybe I'd hev
kept my eyes open a little mite wider'n I did if I'd ever a-dreamed
anybody could care like that.... Don't happen very often though, I
reckon. Just about once in a lifetime, maybe. Maybe, if he ain't too
blind to see it when it does come ... maybe once to every man!"

* * * * *

That next week marked the beginning of an intimacy unlike anything
which Old Jerry had ever before known in all his life, for in spite of
the girl's absolute proprietorship he continued his daily trips up the
long hill, not only for the purpose of leaving Young Denny's bundle of
papers and seed catalogues, but to attend to the stock which the boy
had left in his care as well. It never occurred to him that that duty
was only optional with him now.

He never again attempted either, after that night, to explain his
delinquency and deliver Young Denny's message to her. There seemed to
him absolutely no need now to open a subject which was bound to be
embarrassing to him. And then, too, a sort of tacit understanding
appeared to have sprung up between them that needed no further
explanation.

Only once was the temptation to confess to her the real reason for
Denny's sudden going almost stronger than he could resist. That was
quite a month later, when the news of the boy's second battle was
flaunted broadcast by the same red-headlined sheet. Then for days he
considered the advisability of such a move.

It was not some one to share his hot pride that he wanted; he had
lived his whole life almost entirely within himself, and so his
elation was no less keen because he had no second person with whom to
discuss the victory. He wanted her opinion on a quite different
question--a question which he felt utterly incapable of deciding for
himself. It was no less a plan than that he should be present at the
match which was already hinted at between "The Pilgrim" and Jed The
Red--Jeddy Conway, from that very village.

There were days when he almost felt that she knew