said I, blandly.

"But I have killed all my hogs," Josiah replied, undisturbed.

Tim shouted again, making a trumpet of his hands. To this day I don't
know what he was calling to us, but when this second message reached
Josiah's ears, it concerned some cider we had, that Tim was anxious to
know if he would care for. At the suggestion Josiah's face became very
earnest, and a minute later he was hurrying down the field to the spot
where Tim's hat and Tip Pulsifer's shaggy hair showed above the wreck
of a corn-shock.

"How could you hear what Tim was saying?" Mary asked.

It was almost the first word she had spoken to me, and I was in my
chair again, and she was where I had planned so cunningly to have her.

"I know my brother's voice," I answered gravely.

"I couldn't make out a word," said she, "but it isn't like him to let
an old man go tottering over fields to see him. He would have come up
here."

"I guess he would." There was a twinkle in her eyes and I knew it was
useless to dissemble. "Tim and I are different. I never hesitate to
use strategy to get my chair, even at the expense of a feeble old man."

"How gallant you are," she said with a touch of scorn.

"You must not scold," I cried. "Remember I had reason, after all. You
did not come to see Josiah Nummler."

She was taken by surprise. It was brutal of me. But somehow the old
reckless spirit had come back. I was speaking as a soldier should to a
fair woman, bold and free. That's what a woman likes. She hates a man
who stutters love. And while I did not own to myself the least passion
for the girl, I had seen just enough of her on the evening before and I
had smoked just enough over her that morning to be in a sentimental
turn of mind that was amusing. And I gained my point. She turned her
head so as almost to hide her face from me, and I heard a gentle laugh.

"All's fair in love and war," I said, "and were Josiah twice as old, I
should be justified in using those means to this end."

Then I rocked. There is something so sociable about rocking. And I
smoked. There is something so sociable about smoking. For a moment
the girl sat quietly, screening her face from me. Then she began
rocking too, and I caught a sidelong glance of her eye, and the color
mounted to her cheeks, and we laughed together.

So it came that she suddenly stopped her rocking, and dropping the
little basket at my feet, exclaimed: "I love soldiers--just love