sint you
out to estimate whether our spruce would cut two million feet or less,
an' you'd have come as close as mor-rtal man could, I'll wager. 'Twas
a trivial thing, lad. What's a little matter av figures between min av
the river, eh? We'll leave that to the capitalists who laugh at our
dinseness, me bhoy!"

With that shot at his employer McLean strode off, fuming.

Steve hung back beside Caleb on the return trip up the hill. Not once
did he speak, and Caleb, aware of his thinned lips and the bleak
whiteness of his face, did not know what to say himself. He only knew
that he, too, felt unreasonably bitter against Allison for his burst of
mirth. Not until they had left Barbara and her father at their own
gate and were crossing the Hunter lawn did Caleb attempt any remark
whatsoever.

"I--you musn't feel badly just because you didn't know that
three-quarters and six-eighths were the same, Steve," awkwardly he
tried to comfort him. "I guess there was a time when Allison, in spite
of all his tutors, didn't know it himself, if the truth's old."

Then Caleb learned that Steve had not even heard Allison's burst of
laughter. He whirled--the boy--and his eyes blazed, hurt, shamed,
bitter, into Caleb's kindly ones. He shook with the very vehemence of
the words that came through twitching lips.

"_She_ didn't hev no call to smile like that at me," he flung out. "If
I'd ever hed a chance to learn that they wa'n't no difference between
them figgers, and _hedn't_ knowed, she could'a smiled. But I--I ain't
hed my chance--yit!"

He swung around and stumbled blindly up the steps and groped his way
upstairs.

Caleb stood there for a long time, motionless, and the one thought
uppermost in his mind was that Steve, like Allison, was scarcely
woman-wise. A low muttering behind him finally recalled him to
himself, and when he turned he saw that here were thunder-heads piling
up in the southwest. One long finger of black cloud was already poked
up over the horizon. He remembered the boy's prophecy of the breakfast
table; remembered what McLean had said in scorn of trivial things, and
he went upstairs to urge Steve to remain and join them in their fishing
trip on Monday--the trip north which Allison had proposed, if it rained.

He found the boy stretched, face down, upon the bed, a rigid figure of
misery. Out of his deep desire to heal his hurt he even promised him
the use of a most precious rod; he promised to teach