ve felt
that he had received all the information he needed, for his next remark
had to do with the heat. The day was a "weather breeder", he declared,
and he was glad to have another man to put at the hauling.

An iron triangle beside the kitchen door clamored then, and Bud, looking
quickly, saw the slim little woman with the big, troubled eyes striking
the iron bar vigorously. Dave glanced at his watch and led the way to
the house, the hay crew hurrying after him.

Fourteen men sat down to a long table with a great shuffling of feet and
scraping of benches, and immediately began a voracious attack upon the
heaped platters of chicken and dumplings and the bowls of vegetables.
Bud found a place at the end where he could look into the kitchen,
and his eyes went that way as often as they dared, following the swift
motions of the little woman who poured coffee and filled empty dishes
and said never a word to anyone.

He was on the point of believing her a daughter of the house when a
square-jawed man of thirty, or thereabout, who sat at Bud's right hand,
called her to him as he might have called his dog, by snapping his
fingers.

She came and stood beside Bud while the man spoke to her in an arrogant
undertone.

"Marian, I told yuh I wanted tea for dinner after this. D'you bring me
coffee on purpose, just to be onery? I thought I told yuh to straighten
up and quit that sulkin'. I ain't going to have folks think----"

"Oh, be quiet! Shame on you, before everyone!" she whispered fiercely
while she lifted the cup and saucer.

Bud went hot all over. He did not look up when she returned presently
with a cup of tea, but he felt her presence poignantly, as he had never
before sensed the presence of a woman. When he was able to swallow his
wrath and meet calmly the glances of these strangers he turned his head
casually and looked the man over.

Her husband, he guessed the fellow to be. No other relationship could
account for that tone of proprietorship, and there was no physical
resemblance between the two. A mean devil, Bud called him mentally,
with a narrow forehead, eyes set too far apart and the mouth of a brute.
Someone spoke to the man, calling him Lew, and he answered with rough
good humor, repeating a stale witticism and laughing at it just as
though he had not heard others say it a hundred times.

Bud looked at him again and hated him, but he did not glance again at
the little woman named Marian; for his own pea