uld
know she was comfortable and happy! Happy! She doesn't appear as if she
ever had heard that word. Well this will be a good place to teach her.
I've always enjoyed myself here. I'm going to have faith that I can win
her and make her happy also. When I go to the stable to do my work for
the night if I could know she was in this cabin and glad of it, and if
I could hear her down here singing like a happy care-free girl, I'd
scarcely be able to endure the joy of it."

CHAPTER IX. THE HARVESTER GOES COURTING

"She is on Henry Jameson's farm, four miles west of Onabasha," said the
Harvester, as he opened his eyes next morning, and laid a caressing hand
on Belshazzar's head. "At two o'clock we are going to see her, and we
are going to prolong the visit to the ultimate limit, so we should make
things count here before we start."

He worked in a manner that accomplished much. There seemed no end to
his energy that morning. Despatching the usual routine, he gathered
the herbs that were ready, spread them on the shelves of the dry-house,
found time to do several things in the cabin, and polish a piece of
furniture before he ate his lunch and hitched Betsy to the wagon.
He also had recovered his voice, and talked almost incessantly as he
worked. When it neared time to start he dressed carefully. He stood
before his bookcase and selected several pamphlets published by the
Department of Agriculture. He went to his beds and gathered a large
arm load of plants. Then he was ready to make his first trip to see the
Dream Girl, but it never occurred to him that he was going courting.

He had decided fully that there would be no use to try to make love to
a girl manifestly so ill and in trouble. The first thing, it appeared to
him, was to dispel the depression, improve the health, and then do the
love making. So, in the most business-like manner possible and without
a shade of embarrassment, the Harvester took his herbs and books and
started for the Jameson woods. At times as he drove along he espied
something that he used growing beside the road and stopped to secure a
specimen.

He came down the river bank and reached the ginseng bed at half-past
one. He was purposely early. He laid down his books and plants,
and rolled the log on which she sat the day before to a more shaded
location, where a big tree would serve for a back rest. He pulled away
brush and windfalls, heaped dry brown leaves, and tramped them down
for her feet