became
absolutely mechanical.

"Say, Brad, let's go to that dance over at Davis's," shouted Ike, after
an hour of silence.

"I guess not."

"Why not?"

"Because I aint invited."

"Oh, that's all right; Ed, he told me to bring anyone I felt like."

"I aint going, all the same. I may be in Rock River by next Wednesday."

"They aint no danger o' you're going to Rock River."

Bradley fell once more into the circle of his plans and went the round
again. He had saved two hundred dollars. It was enough to take him to
school a year, but what then? That was the recurring question. It was
the most momentous day in his life. Should he spend his money in this
way? Every dollar of it represented toil, long days of lonely plowing
or dragging, long days under the burning harvest sun. It was all he
had, all he had to show for his life. Was it right to spend it for
schooling?

"What good'll it do yeh?" Ike asked one day when Bradley was feeling
out for a little helpful sympathy. "Better buy a team with it and rent
a piece of land. What y' goan to do after you spent the money?"

"I don't know," Bradley had replied in his honest way.

"Wal, I'd think of it a dum long spell 'fore I'd do it," was Ike's
reply, and Councill had agreed with it.

Bradley fell behind Ike, for he wanted to be alone. He had grown into
the habit of accounting to _Her_ for his actions, and when he wished to
consult with _Her_, he wanted to be alone. There was something sacred,
even in the thought of _Her_, and he shrank from having his thoughts
broken in upon by any careless or jesting word.

As he pondered, his hands grew slower in their action and, at last, he
stopped and leaned against the wagon-box. Something came into his heart
that shook him, a feeling of unknown power, a certainty of faith in
himself. He shivered with an electric thrill that made his hair stir.

He lifted his face to the sky and his eyes saw a crane sailing with
stately grace, in measureless circle, a mere speck against the unbroken
gray of the sky. There seemed something prophetic; something mystic in
its harsh, wild cry that fell, like the scream of the eagle, a defiant
note against wind and storm.

"I'll do it," he said, and his hands clinched. At the sound of his
voice he shivered again, as if the wind had suddenly penetrated his
clothing. His dress made him grotesque. The spaces around him made him
pathetic, but in his golden-brown eyes was something that made him
sub