em well and as cheerful as
ever. For fear of disturbing their peace I said nothing of my fight with
Wills or the cause of it. Uncle Peabody had cut the timber for our new
house and hauled it to the mill. I returned to school in a better mind
about them.

May had returned--a warm bright May. The roads were dry. The thorn trees
had thatched their shapely roofs with vivid green. The maple leaves were
bigger than a squirrel's foot, which meant as well, I knew, that the
trout were jumping. The robins had returned. I had entered my
seventeenth year and the work of the term was finished.

[Illustration: She stopped the pony and leaned toward me.]

Having nothing to do one afternoon, I walked out on the road toward
Ogdensburg for a look at the woods and fields. Soon I thought that I
heard the sound of galloping hoofs behind me. Turning, I saw nothing,
but imagined Sally coming and pulling up at my side. I wondered what I
should say if she were really to come.

"Sally!" I exclaimed. "I have been looking at the violets and the green
fields and back there I saw a thorn tree turning white, but I have seen
no fairer thing than you."

They surprised me a little--those fine words that came so easily. What a
school of talk was the house I lived in those days!

"I guess I'm getting Mr. Hacket's gift o' gab," I said to myself.

Again I heard the sound of galloping hoofs and as I looked back I saw
Sally rounding the turn by the river and coming toward me at full speed,
the mane of her pony flying back to her face. She pulled up beside me
just as I had imagined she would do.

"Bart, I hate somebody terribly," said she.

"Whom?"

"A man who is coming to our house on the stage to-day. Granny Barnes is
trying to get up a match between us. Father says he is rich and hopes he
will want to marry me. I got mad about it. He is four years older than I
am. Isn't that awful? I am going to be just as mean and hateful to him
as I can."

"I guess they're only fooling you," I said.

"No, they mean it. I have heard them talking it over."

"He can not marry you."

"Why?"

It seemed to me that the time had come for me to speak out, and with
burning cheeks I said:

"Because I think that God has married you to me already. Do you remember
when we kissed each other by the wheat-field one day last summer?"

"Yes." She was looking down at the mane of her pony and her cheeks were
red and her voice reminded me of the echoes that fill the caver