e wanted to work with
his hands, to fight against a blunt opposition. He stood bareheaded, his
face strong. She looked upon him with admiration. From the first,
something about him had caught her odd fancy. She was an implacable
enemy and a surprising friend. She put her hand on his arm.

"Now, don't you fret," she said. "You didn't have to tell me you had no
money. That's all right. If you want this farm you can have it. It's no
use to me, lyin' this way. Yes, Bill, you can take it right now. Oh, you
may go around here, and some of 'em will tell you that a meaner woman
never lived--them that's tried to have their own way over me--but the
poor and the needy will tell a different tale. They know where to get
somethin' to eat. Well, it's settled. Come on, now, and we'll go back
and fix up the particulars when we get time."

He was cheerful as they walked back toward the old woman's home. New
tones came out of his voice. There was baritone music in his laugh. She
assured him that the details could be arranged without a hitch, that for
the present he might rest at ease. He replied that there could be no
ease for him, except as he might dig it out of the ground; he seemed to
crave a strain of the body to relieve a strain of the mind. She was
accustomed to meet all sorts of men, the scum and the leisure of the
city, but this man gave her a new feeling of interest. He looked like a
man that would fight, and this kindled the fire of her admiration. She
loathed a coward. As a girl, she had hunted with her father in the woods
of Ohio. One night his house was attacked by roughs, and she had fought
with him. To her there was no merit that did not show action; thought
that did not lead to action was a waste of the mind. A book was the
record of laziness. She tolerated newspapers--in one she had found the
announcement that a man whom she hated was dead. Once a man slandered
her. She laughed--a sound as cold as the trickling of iced water--and
said that she would live to see his last home marked out upon the
ground. She did. She was seen in the cemetery, digging. "What are you
doing there?" was asked. And she answered: "I'm planting a hog-weed on
Thompson's grave." Old Lewson, the man who sat under the apple tree,
gave his meager property to his children. They turned him out to die.
Mrs. Stuvic took him. "I won't live long," he said. "I'm eighty-three
years old." "Don't you fret," she replied; "a man that's as big a fool
as you be ma