d school in Boomtown, say. She ain't used to
these music-halls an' things. Kind o' make her think St. Peter ain't no
great shakes, anyhow."

"I see," laughed the quick-witted girl. And she succeeded in removing
a good deal of Flaxen's dread of the seminary.

"Wal, babe, to-morrow," said Anson, as they were eating supper, and he
was astonished to see her break out in weeping.

"Why don't you keep harpin' away on that the whole while?" she
exclaimed. "Can't you leave me alone a minute? Seems to me you're jest
crazy to git rid o' me."

"Oh, we are," put in Bert. "We're jest lickin' our chops to git back to
sour flapjacks an' soggy bread. Jest seems as though we couldn't wait
till to-morrow noon, to begin doing our own cookin' again."

This cleared the air a little, and they spent the rest of the evening
without saying very much directly upon the departure. The two men sat
up late after Flaxen had gone to bed. There was the trunk and valise
which would not let them forget even for a moment what was coming on
the morrow. Every time Anson looked at her he sighed and tried to
swallow the lump in his throat.

"Say, Bert, let's let her stay if she wants to," he said suddenly after
they had been in silence for a long time.

"Don't make a cussed fool of yourself, Ans," growled Bert, who saw that
heroic measures were necessary. "Go to bed an' don't you say another
word; we've got to take our medicine like men."

CHAPTER VIII.

AN EMPTY HOUSE.

Anson was the more talkative of the two next morning, however.

"Come, come, brace up, babe! Anybody 'u'd think we'd lost all the rest
of our family, when we're only doin' the square thing by our daughter.
That's all. Why, you'll be as happy as a canary in less'n two weeks.
Young folks is about the same everywhere, an' you'll git acquainted in
less'n two jiffies."

They were on the road to Boomtown to put Flaxen on the train. It was
about the tenth of September, early in the cold, crisp air of a perfect
morning. In the south there was a vast phantom lake, with duplicate
cities here and there along the winding shores, which stretched from
east to west. The grain-stacks stood around so thickly that they seemed
like walls of a great, low-built town, the mirage bringing into vision
countless hundreds of them commonly below the horizon.

The smoke of steam threshing-machines mounted into the still air here
and there, and hung long in a slowly drifting cloud above the land.