something winning in the whole bearing of the man as he stood
before the father, who remained silent and grim.

"Or if you don't do that, why, there's nothin' left fer Merry an' me but
to go back to La Crosse, where I can have my choice of a dozen farms.
Now this is the way things is standin'. I don't want to be underhanded
about this thing"----

"That's a fair offer," said Mr. Jennings in the pause which followed.
"You'd better do it, neighbor Bacon. Nobuddy need know how things
stood; they were married in my house--I thought that 'u'd be best. You
can't live without your girl," he went on, "any more 'n I could without
my boy. You'd better"----

The figure at the table straightened up. Under his tufted eyebrows his
keen gray eyes flashed from one to the other. His hands knotted.

"Go slow!" went on the smooth voice of Jennings, known all the country
through as a peace-maker. "Take time t' think it over. Stand out, an'
you'll live here alone without chick 'r child; give in, and this house
'll bubble over with noise and young ones. Now is short, and forever's a
long time to feel sorry in."

The old man at the table knitted his eyebrows, and a distorted,
quivering, ghastly smile broke out on his face. His chest heaved; then
he burst forth:

"Gal, yank them gloves off, an' git me something to eat--breakfus 'r
dinner, I don't care which. Lime, you infernal idiot, git out there and
gear up them horses. What in thunder you foolun' around about hyere in
seed'n'? Come, hustle, all o' ye!"

And then they shouted in laughter, while the cause of it all strode
unsteadily but resolutely out toward the barn, followed by the
bridegroom, who was laughing--silently.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

PART IV.

SIM BURNS'S WIFE: A PRAIRIE HEROINE

A tale of toil that's never done I tell;
Of life where love's a fleeting wing
Above the woman's hopeless hell
Of ceaseless, year-round journeying.

SIM BURNS'S WIFE.

I.

Lucretia Burns had never been handsome, even in her days of early
girlhood, and now she was middle-aged, distorted with work and
child-bearing, and looking faded and worn as one of the boulders that
lay beside the pasture fence near where she sat milking a large white
cow.

She had no shawl or hat and no shoes, for it was still muddy in the
little yard, where the cattle stood patiently fighting the flies and
mosquitoes swarming into their skins, al