in the midst of it
all, hard-working, discouraged farmers, like Simeon Burns, worked on,
unable to find out what really was the matter.

And there, on this beautiful Sabbath morning, Sim sat and thought and
thought, till he rose with an oath and gave it up.

IV.

It was hot and brilliant again the next morning as Douglass Radbourn
drove up the road with Lily Graham, the teacher of the school in the
little white school-house. It was blazing hot, even though not yet nine
o'clock, and the young farmers plowing beside the fence looked longingly
and somewhat bitterly at Radbourn seated in a fine top-buggy beside a
beautiful creature in lace and cambric.

Very beautiful the town-bred "school-ma'am" looked to those grimy,
sweaty fellows, superb fellows, too, physically, with bare red arms and
leather-colored faces. She was as if builded of the pink and white
clouds soaring far up there in the morning sky. So cool, and sweet, and
dainty.

As she came in sight, their dusty and sweaty shirts grew biting as the
poisoned shirt of the Norse myth, their bare feet in the brown dirt grew
distressingly flat and hoof-like, and their huge, dirty, brown, chapped
and swollen hands grew so repulsive that the mere remote possibility of
some time in the far future standing a chance of having an introduction
to her caused them to wipe their palms on their trousers' legs
stealthily.

Lycurgus Banks swore when he saw Radbourn. "That cuss thinks he's ol'
hell this morning. He don't earn his living. But he's just the kind of
cuss to get holt of all the purty girls."

Others gazed with simple, sad wistfulness upon the slender figure, pale,
sweet face, and dark eyes of the young girl, feeling that to have talk
with such a fairy-like creature was a happiness too great to ever be
their lot. And when she had passed they went back to work with a sigh
and feeling of loss.

As for Lily, she felt a pang of pity for these people. She looked at
this peculiar form of poverty and hardship much as the fragile, tender
girl of the city looks upon the men laying a gas-main in the streets.
She felt, sympathetically, the heat and grime, and, though but the
faintest idea of what it meant to wear such clothing came to her, she
shuddered. Her eyes had been opened to these things by Radbourn, a
class-mate at the Seminary.

The young fellow knew that Lily was in love with him, and he made
distinct effort to keep the talk upon impersonal subjects. He li