ne and looked at the
wheat, wide level green plains already turning yellow; or at the corn,
regiments of tall soldiers, each shako tipped with a feathery tassel.
Beyond lay the woods--dark, mysterious. Little dim plants of the soil
bloomed and shed faint scent along the pathway in the dewy twilight.
Sometimes they sat under the wild clematis, flowering now, and that,
too, was perfumed, a wild and tangy scent that did not cloy. They did
not talk very much, but he was tender with her, and his fits of anger
seemed forgotten.

When they did talk it was usually about the crops--the wheat. It was
wonderful heavy wheat. It was the best wheat in all the neighbourhood.
Occasionally they took out the little coffeepot and drove through the
country and looked at other wheat, but there was none so fine as
theirs.

And with the money it would bring--the golden wheat turned into
gold--they would---- And now came endless dreams.

"I thought we'd sell the old coffeepot to the junkman and get a
brand-new car, a good one, but now----" This was Wes.

"I think we ought to save, too. A boy'll need so many things."

"Girls don't need anything much, I suppose--oh, no!" He touched her
cheek with gentle fingers.

"It's not going to be a girl."

"How d'you know?"

"I know."

So went their talk, over and over, an endless garland of happy
conjectures, plans, air castles. Cousin Lorena sent little patterns
and thin scraps of material, tiny laces, blue ribbons.

"I told her blue--blue's for boys," said Annie. And Wes laughed at
her. It was all a blessed interlude of peace and expectancy.

The wheat was ready for harvest. From her place under the clematis
vine, where she sat with her sewing, Annie could see the fields of
pale gold, ready for the reaper. Wes had taken the coffeepot and gone
down to the valley to see when the threshers would be able to come. In
the morning he would begin to cut. Annie cocked a questioning eye at
the sky, for she had already learned to watch the farmer's greatest
ally and enemy--weather.

"If this good spell of weather only holds until he gets it all cut!"
She remembered stories he had told her of sudden storms that flattened
the ripe grain to the ground, beyond saving; of long-continued rains
that mildewed it as it stood in the shocks. But if the good weather
held! And there was not a cloud in the sky, nor any of those faint
signs by which changing winds or clouds are forecast.

She heard the rattle an