l anything here
lovely."

"Oh, you don't understand," her visitor went on. "It's lovely because it
looks so happy. Some of us have--well, kind o' lost our grip."

"It's easy to do that if you don't feel well," Annie remarked
sympathetically. "I haven't felt as well as usual myself, lately. And
I do get lonesome and wonder what good it does to fix up every day when
there is no one to see. But that is all nonsense, and I put it out of my
head."

She smoothed out the clean lawn apron with delicate touch. Mrs. Dundy
followed the movement with her eyes.

"Oh, my dear," she cried, "you don't know nothin' about it yet! But you
will know! You will!" and those restless, hot eyes of hers seemed to
grow more restless and more hot as they looked with infinite pity at the
young woman before her.

Annie thought of these words often as the summer came on, and the heat
grew. Jim was seldom to be seen now. He was up at four each morning,
and the last chore was not completed till nine at night. Then he threw
himself in bed and lay there log-like till dawn. He was too weary to
talk much, and Annie, with her heart aching for his fatigue, forbore to
speak to him. She cooked the most strengthening things she could, and
tried always to look fresh and pleasant when he came in. But she often
thought her pains were in vain, for he hardly rested his sunburned
eyes on her. His skin got so brown that his face was strangely changed,
especially as he no longer had time to shave, and had let a rough beard
straggle over his cheeks and chin. On Sundays Annie would have liked to
go to church, but the horses were too tired to be taken out, and she did
not feel well enough to walk far; besides, Jim got no particular good
out of walking over the hills unless he had a plough in his hand.

Harvest came at length, and the crop was good. There were any way from
three to twenty men at the house then, and Annie cooked for all of them.
Jim had tried to get some one to help her, but he had not succeeded.
Annie strove to be brave, remembering that farm-women all over the
country were working in similar fashion. But in spite of all she could
do, the days got to seem like nightmares, and sleep between was but a
brief pause in which she was always dreaming of water, and thinking that
she was stooping to put fevered lips to a running brook. Some of these
men were very disgusting to Annie. Their manners were as bad as they
could well be, and a coarse word came nat