ve got,
just bread and bacon? Conscience alive! you are livin' hard."

"I can't afford anything else," he replied, looking down upon his rough
fare.

"Well, you ought to get rich at this rate. There's not one man in a
thousand that would be willin' to put up with it. What's your aim,
anyway?"

"To make money."

"Money! It's some woman, that's what it is. Well, you're a fool. What
thanks do you reckon she'll ever give you? She'll growl because you
didn't make more. I'll get back. I don't like your grub. But recollect,
now," she added, as she turned toward the door, "that if you say a word
about what I expected to happen last night, I'll drive you out of the
county." She went out, but her head soon reappeared at the door. "Bill,"
she said, "there's a sucker born every minute."

"And sometimes twins," he replied. She leaned against the door-facing to
laugh, not in the jollity of good-humor, but in the sharp and racking
titter of soured self-pity. "Sometimes twins--yes, you bet!"

"If I didn't have a word for it that I couldn't dispute, I'd think that
I was the weakling of a set of triplets," said Milford.

"Oh, you'll do. There's no flies buzzing around you, I tell you. Well,
I'll leave you, sure enough now."

For a time, he clattered the rough dishes, clearing them out of the way,
despising the work--a loathing shared by all human beings. Mitchell was
at the barn, among the horses, and there came the occasional and almost
rhythmic tap, tap, tap of his currycomb against the thin wall. In the
damp sags of the corn field, the plow could not be used with advantage,
and Milford assigned to himself the work of covering this territory with
a hoe. The advisory board, men who drove past in milk wagons, condemned
it as a piece of folly. They said that a man might wear himself out
among the clods, and to no great purpose, either; but Milford appeared
to rejoice in his conquest over the combative soil. Steve Hardy said
that he must be doing penance in the hot sun for some crime committed in
the cool shade. But the old woman had given it out that her man was
working for a woman, and the women commended it. How soft is the voice
of woman when she speaks of one who sweats for her sex! They sat upon
the veranda, watching Milford as he delved in the blaze of the sun. It
was a romance. Afar off there must be a sighing woman, waiting for him.
Mrs. Blakemore could see her, and she sighed with her, watching the hero
dealing the hard