a small field, but there seemed to be miles and miles of
that fencing. We had no stretcher, so Dinky-Dunk made shift with me and
a claw-hammer. He'd catch the wire, lever his hammer about a post, and
I'd drive in the staple, with a hammer of my own. I got so I could hit
the staple almost every whack, though one staple went off like shrapnel
and hit Diddum's ear. So I'm some use, you see, even if I am a chekako!
But a wire slipped, and tore through my skirt and stocking, scratched my
leg and made the blood run. It was only the tiniest cut, really, but I
made the most of it, Dinky-Dunk was so adorably nice about doctoring me
up. We came home tired and happy, singing together, and Olie, as usual,
must have thought we'd both gone mad.

This husband of mine is so elementary. He secretly imagines that he's
one of the most complex of men. But in a good many things he's as simple
as a child. And I love him for it, although I believe I _do_ like to
bedevil him a little. He is dignified, and hates flippancy. So when I
greet him with "Morning, old boy!" I can see that nameless little
shadow sweep over his face. Then I say, "Oh, I beg its little pardon!"
He generally grins, in the end, and I think I'm slowly shaking that
monitorial air out of him, though once or twice I've had to remind him
about La Rochefoucauld saying gravity was a stratagem invented to
conceal the poverty of the mind! But Dinky-Dunk still objects to me
putting my finger on his Adam's apple when he's talking. He wears a
flannel shirt, when working outside, and his neck is bare. Yesterday I
buried my face down in the corner next to his shoulder-blade and made
him wriggle. As he shaves only on Sunday mornings now, that is about the
only soft spot, for his face is prickly, and makes my chin sore, the
bearded brute! Then I bit him; not hard--but Satan said bite, and I just
had to do it. He turned quite pale, swung me round so that I lay limp in
his arms, and closed his mouth over mine. I got away, and he chased me.
We upset things. Then I got outside the shack, ran around the
horse-corral, and then around the hay-stacks, with Dinky-Dunk right
after me, giving me goose-flesh at every turn. I felt like a
cave-woman. He grabbed me like a stone-age man and caught me up and
carried me over his shoulder to a pile of prairie sweet-grass that had
been left there for Olie's mattress. My hair was down. I was screaming,
half sobbing and half laughing. He dropped me in the hay,