and he'll surely tell me
in time to get a brace. Of course I know, Ambrose, that you've been
plumb crazy about girls since the Lord knows when, and been sendin'
mottoes and valentines since you were able to talk, but I didn't think
you would reach the marryin' stage fer quite a spell. Still I can see
for myself that this spring trip looks like business. It passes my
knowledge,"--Miner relented--"but it's you. Seems as if I couldn't bear
havin' females worritin' me save those my parents and the Lord put on me
to the last day I live, but you, Ambrose, you ain't never had petticoat
sense and never will. Good-bye." And there was unutterable scorn in
Miner's last words, as he moved away, mingled with the affection he was
to feel for no living thing save Ambrose. When with head bowed, he was
unconsciously treading underfoot the flowers that sprinkled his path, a
fishing-pole and line deftly circled through the air caught its hook in
his coat sleeve.

The one boy struggled, while the other jerked, and then a rich voice
drawled: "Please come back, old man, for if you really want to know why
I've run off to myself each spring for these past five years so it
clean hurts you not to know, I reckon I've got to tell you."

Then Miner returned and sat down again. His friend's behaviour was now
even more puzzling than before, for although Ambrose was close by, his
eyes had a faraway look in them, his eyebrows were twitching, his
slender nostrils quivering, and indeed, he had the appearance of a man
having strayed off some great distance by himself.

"Swear you'll never give me away, Miner," he began, and holding up one
of his big hands in the sunlight--his hands which were the truly
beautiful thing about him--he made a mystic sign to which his companion
swore.

"You won't understand when I do tell you," he hedged, "but I've been
comin' away off to myself every spring since I was a boy on account of
the 'Second Song of Solomon.'"

And at this Miner groaned, shutting his near-sighted eyes. "Lord, he's
the chap that had a thousand wives!"

Then back to earth came Ambrose, his blue eyes swimming in mists of
laughter and his shouts waking all the echoes in the hills.

"Wives!" he cried, rolling his long body over and over in the grass, and
kicking out his legs in sheer ecstasy, "Miner Hobbs, if ever you git an
idea fixed in your head, earthquakes won't shake it. Wives, is it? Why,
I ain't given Peachy Williams a thought of my own a