moments came and spoken the
words. But on such matters he had no intuitions, was a mere,
unenlightened male trying to win a woman by standing at a distance and
kneeling in timid worship.

Now sitting, sewing on the log, Susan heard a step on the gravel, and
without looking up gave it a moment's attention and knew it was Leff's.
She began to sing softly, with an air of abstraction. The steps drew
near her, she noted that they lagged as they approached, finally
stopped. She gave her work a last, lingering glance and raised her
eyes slowly as if politeness warred with disinclination, Leff was
standing before her, scowling at her as at an object of especial
enmity. He carried a small tin pail full of wild strawberries. She
saw it at once, but forebore looking at it, keeping her eyes on his
face, up which the red color ran.

"Oh, Leff," she said with careless amiability, "so you've got back."

Leff grunted an agreeing monosyllable and moved the strawberries to a
position where they intruded into the conversation like a punctuation
mark in the middle of a sentence. Her glance dropped to the pail, and
she looked at it saying nothing, amused to thus tease him and covertly
note his hopeless and impotent writhings.

He thrust the pail almost against her knee and she was forced to say:

"What fine strawberries, a whole pail full. Can I have one?"

He nodded and she made a careful choice, giving the pail a little shake
to stir its contents. Leff glared at the top of her head where her
hair was twisted into a rough knot.

"Thank you," she said. "I've found a beauty. You must have been all
afternoon getting so many," and she put the strawberry in her mouth and
picked up her sewing as though that ended the matter.

Leff stood shifting from foot to foot, hoping that she might extend a
helping hand.

"The river's falling," he said at length. "It's gone down two feet.
We can cross this evening."

"Then I must hurry and finish my mending."

She evidently was not going to extend so much as the tip of a finger.
In his bashful misery his mind worked suddenly and unexpectedly.

"I've got to go and get the horses," he said, and, setting the pail on
the log beside her, turned and ran.

But Susan was prepared for this move. It was what she expected.

"Oh, Leff," she called, lazily. "Come back, you've forgotten your
strawberries."

And he had to come back, furious and helpless, he had to come back. He
had not cou