im, but I was on nettles all night.
I jest laid a-studyin' and a-studyin', and I says, 'Come mornin' I'll
go straight and give her a curry-combin' that'll do her good.' And I
started a-feelin' pretty grim, and here you came to meet me, and
wiped it all out of my heart in a flash. It did look like the boy was
grievin'; but I know now he was jest thinkin' up what to put together
to take the ache out of some poor old carcass like mine. It never could
have been about you. Like a half blind old fool I thought the boy was
sufferin', and here he was only studyin'! Like as not he was thinkin'
what to do next to show you how he loves you. What an old silly I was!
I'll sleep like a log to-night to pay up for it. Good-bye, honey! You
better go back and lay down a spell. You do look mortal tired."

The Girl said good-bye and staggering a few steps sank on a log and sat
staring at the sky.

"Oh he was suffering, and about me!" she gasped. A chill began to shake
her and feverish blood to race through her veins. "He does and gives
everything; I do and give nothing! Oh why didn't I stay at Uncle Henry's
until it ended? It wouldn't have been so bad as this. What will I do? Oh
what will I do? Oh mother, mother! if I'd only had the courage you did."

She arose and staggered up the hill, passed the cabin and went to the
oak. There she sank shivering to earth, and laid her face among the
mosses. The frightened Harvester found her at almost dusk when he came
from the city with the Dutch dishes, and helped a man launch a gay
little motor boat for her on the lake.

"Why Ruth! Ruth-girl!" he exclaimed, kneeling beside her.

She lifted a strained, distorted face.

"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" she cried. "It is not true that I
am better. I am not! I am worse! I never will be better. And before I go
I've got to tell you of the debt I owe; then you will hate me, and then
I will be glad! Glad, I tell you! Glad! When you despise me? then I can
go, and know that some day you will love a girl worthy of you. Oh I want
you to hate me I am fit for nothing else."

She fell forward sobbing wildly and the Harvester tried in vain to quiet
her. At last he said, "Well then tell me, Ruth. Remember I don't want to
hear what you have to say. I will believe nothing against you, not even
from your own lips, when you are feverish and excited as now, but if
it will quiet you, tell me and have it over. See, I will sit here and
listen, and when you have