he prettiest place
on earth, chose to remain for her eternal sleep, rather than to rest in
a distant city of stranger dead?"

He felt the Girl tremble against him.

"Where is she?"

"Very close," said the Harvester. "Under this oak. She used to say that
she had a speaking acquaintance with every tree on our land, and of them
all she loved this big one the best. She liked to come here in winter,
and feel the sting of the wind sweeping across the lake, and in summer
this was her place to read and to think. So when she slept the unwaking
sleep, Ruth, I came here and made her bed with my own hands, and then
carried her to it, covered her, and she sleeps well. I never have
regretted her going. Life did not bring her joy. She was very tired.
She used to say that after her soul had fled, if I would lay her here,
perhaps the big roots would reach down and find her, and from her frail
frame gather slight nourishment and then her body would live again in
talking leaves that would shelter me in summer and whisper her love in
winter. Of all Medicine Woods this is the dearest spot to me. Can you
love it too, Ruth?"

"Oh I can!" cried the Girl; "I do now! Just to see the place and hear
that is enough. I wish, oh to my soul I wish----"

"You wish what?" whispered the Harvester gently.

"I dare not! I was wild to think of it. I would be ungrateful to ask
it."

"You would be ungracious if you didn't ask anything that would give
me the joy of pleasing you. How long is it going to require for you
to learn, Ruth, that to make up for some of the difficulties life has
brought you would give me more happiness than anything else could? Tell
me now."

"No!"

He gathered her closer.

"Ruth, there is no reason why you should be actively unkind to me. What
is it you wish?"

She struggled from his arms and stood alone in white moonlight, staring
across the lake, along the shore, deep into the perfumed forest, and
then at the mound she now could distinguish under the giant tree.
Suddenly she went to him and with both shaking hands gripped his arm.

"My mother!" she panted. "Oh she was a beautiful woman, delicately
reared, and her heart was crushed and broken. By the inch she went to
a dreadful end I could not avert or allay, and in poverty and grime I
fought for a way to save her body from further horror, and it's all so
dreadful I thought all feeling in me was dried and still, but I am not
quite calloused yet. I suffer it over with