u go?"

"Because," said she, and laughed. "I reckon maybe that th' water's
started to warm up down in the pool, ain't it?" she cried, and laughed
again.

"Oh!" said he, a bit abashed, and evidently understanding.

They did not pursue the subject.

"What you got there?" he inquired, a few moments later, as they were
approaching the old pasture. He pointed to a package carefully wrapped
in a clean apron, which she hugged beneath her arm.

"Spellin' book," said Madge, as, just before the bars she slid down from
her perch upon the ox. "I'm learnin'."

His lip curled with the mountaineer's contempt for books and all they
have to teach.

"What you want to _learn_ for?"

He had gently shouldered her aside as she had stooped to raise the bars
back to position, and, with a certain crude gallantry, had done the task
himself.

"Bleeged," she said briefly, and then, standing with one brown and
rounded arm upon the topmost rail, paused in consideration of an answer
to his question.

The ox stopped, dully, close within the closed gap in the rough fence.
She went closer to him and patted his side kindly. "Go on, old Buck,"
she said. "I'm through with you for quite a while. Go on and have some
fun or rest, whichever you like best. You certainly can stand a lot of
rest! And here is new spring grass, Buck. I should think you would be
crazy to git at it."

As if he understood, the old ox turned away, and, slowly, with careful
searching for the newest and the tenderest of the forage blades which
had pushed up to meet the pleasant sunshine, showed he was well fed at
all times.

"What do I want to learn for?" the girl repeated, returning to Joe's
question. "Why--why--I don't know, exactly. There's a longin' stirrin'
in me.

"While you was over yon" (she waved her hand in a broad sweep to
indicate the mountain's other side). "I had to go down into town
after--after quite a lot of things." She looked at him somewhat
furtively, as if she feared this statement might give rise to some
unwelcome questioning, but it did not. "I saw what queer things they are
doin'--th' men that work there on that railroad buildin'. Wonderful
things, lots of 'em, and the bed-rock of 'em all was learnin'. I watched
a gang of 'em for near plum half a day. There wasn't a thing they did
that they didn't first read from a sheet of paper about. If they hadn't
had them sheets and if they couldn't read what had been written on 'em,
why, they couldn't neve