t her for a little
while, and she was glad of that, too. His hurt had kept her busy. His
ways about the house, even the careless ones, had strengthened the grief
in her, but in a human, poignant way that had no bitterness.

They went about, testing the fence-lengths, and then, before they left
the pasture, stood, by according impulse, and looked back into its
trembling green. The boy had let down the bars, but he was loath to go.

"Stop a minute," he said, pointing to an upland bank where the sun lay
warm. "I'm tired."

"Lazy, more like," said Hetty. But he knew she said it fondly.

He lay down at full length, and she sank stiffly on the bank and leaned
her elbow there. She looked at the sky and then at the bank. It was blue
with violets. There were so many of them that, as they traveled up the
sod, they made a purple stain.

"Well, aunt Het," said he, "you've got the pastur'."

She nodded.

"Don't make much difference how long you wait," he continued, "if it
comes at last." He was thinking of his patent, and Hetty knew it.

"Mebbe we can't have things when we expect to," she answered
comprehendingly. "Still Lucy's great on that. 'Don't do no good to set
up your Ebenezer,' says she. 'You got to wait for things to grow.'
Lucy's dretful pious." She passed her brown hands over the violet heads,
as gently as a breeze, caressing but not bending them. "I dunno 's ever
I see so many vi'lets afore."

"Like 'em, aunt Het?" he asked her kindly.

"I guess I do!" but as she spoke, her eyes widened in awe and wonder.
"My Lord!" she breathed. "They're flowers."

The boy laughed.

"What'd you think they were?" he asked, with the same indulgent
interest. "Herd's grass?"

He turned over and buried his sleepy visage in the new leaves. But Hetty
was communing with herself. Her old face had a look of hushed solemnity.
Her eyes were lighted from within.

"Sure enough," she murmured reverently. "They're flowers."

GARDENER JIM

"Jim!" called Mrs. Marshall, as the old man, carrying a basket in one
hand and a spade in the other, was trudging steadily by. His blue
overalls and jumper were threadbare under the soft brown they had
achieved through his strenuous kneeling and the general intimacy of
weeds and sod. He had a curious neutrality of expression--perhaps an
indifference to what his blue eyes fell upon, save when they looked out
from under their rugged brows at the growing things he tended. Then the
lines about