r all the same when I am gone. I will always love her."

Julia did not know what to say to this passionate speech, so she
contented herself with looking a little grateful and very foolish.

"But I am only a poor boy, and a Dutchman at that"--he said this
bitterly--"but if you will wait, Jule, I will show them I am of some
account. Not good enough for you, but good enough for _them_.
You will--"

"I will wait--_forever_--for _you_, Gus." Her head was down, and her
voice could hardly be heard. "Good-by." She stretched out her hand, and
he took it trembling.

"Wait a minute." He dropped the hand, and taking a pencil wrote on a
beam:

"March 18th, 1843."

"There, that's to remember the Dutchman by."

"Don't call yourself a Dutchman, August. One day in school, when I was
sitting opposite to you, I learned this definition, 'August: grand,
magnificent,' and I looked at you and said, Yes, that he is. August is
grand and magnificent, and that's what you are. You're just grand!"

I do not think he was to blame. I am sure he was not responsible. It was
done so quickly. He kissed her forehead and then her lips, and said
good-by and was gone. And she, with her apron full of eggs and her
cheeks very red--it makes one warm to climb--went back to the house,
resolved in some way to thank Cynthy Ann for sending her; but Cynthy
Ann's face was so serious and austere in its look that Julia concluded
she must have been mistaken, Cynthy Ann couldn't have known that August
was in the barn. For all she said was:

"You got a right smart lot of eggs, didn't you? The hens is beginnin' to
lay more peart since the warm spell sot in."

CHAPTER IV.

A COUNTER-IRRITANT.

"Vot you kits doornt off vor? Hey?"

Gottlieb Wehle always spoke English, or what he called English, when he
was angry.

"Vot for? Hey?"

All the way home from Anderson's on that Saturday night, August had
been, in imagination, listening to the rough voice of his honest father
asking this question, and he had been trying to find a satisfactory
answer to it. He might say that Mr. Anderson did not want to keep a hand
any longer. But that would not be true. And a young man with August's
clear blue eyes was not likely to lie.

"Vot vor ton't you not shpeak? Can't you virshta blain Eenglish ven you
hears it? Hey? You a'n't no teef vot shteels I shposes, unt you ton't
kit no troonks mit vishky? Vot you too tat you pe shamt of? Pin lazin'
rount? Kon you nicht Eenglis