lgia last night, after he got the corn
loaded, so I had to come."

"Sha'n't I drive for you?" asked Wallace.

"No, thank you. You'll have all you can do to keep from freezing." She
studied his thin coat and worn gloves with keen glance. He could see
only her pink cheeks, strong nose, and dark, smiling eyes.

It was one of those terrible Illinois days when the temperature drops
suddenly to zero, and the churned mud of the highways hardens into
scoriac rock, which cripples the horses and sends the heavy wagons
booming and thundering along like mad things. The wind was keen as a
saw-bladed sword, and smote incessantly. The desolate sky was one thick,
impenetrable mass of swiftly flying clouds.

When they swung out upon the long pike leading due north, Wallace drew
his breath with a gasp, and bent his head to the wind.

"Pretty strong, isn't it?" shouted Mattie.

"Oh, the farmer's life is the life for me, tra-la!" sang Herman, from
his shelter behind the seat.

Mattie turned. "What do you think of _Penelope_ this month?"

"She's a-gitten there," said Herman, pounding his shoe heels.

"She's too smart for young Corey. She ought to marry a man like
Bromfield. My, wouldn't they talk!"

"Did y' get the second bundle of magazines last Saturday?"

"Yes; and Dad found something in the _Popular Science_ that made him
mad, and he burned it."

"Did 'e? Tum-la-la! Oh, the farmer's life for me!"

"Are you cold?" she asked Wallace.

He turned a purple face upon her. "No--not much."

"I guess you better slip right down under the blankets," she advised.

The wind blew gray out of the north--a wild blast which stopped the
young student's blood in his veins. He hated to give up, but he could no
longer hold the blankets over his knees, so he slipped down into the
corner of the box, with his back to the wind, while Mattie drew the
blankets over his head, slapped the reins down on the backs of the
snorting horses, and encouraged them with shouts like a man: "Get out o'
this, Dan! Hup there, Nellie!"

The wagon boomed and rattled. The floor of the box seemed beaten with a
maul. The glimpses Wallace had of the land appalled him, it was so flat
and gray and bare.

Herman sang at the top of his voice, and danced, and pounded his feet
against the wagon box. "This ends it! If I can't come home without
freezing to death, I don't come. I should have hired a rig, irrespective
of you--"

The girl laughed. "Oh, you're getting thin