and calf which she
was afraid I wouldn't feed--and, I don't know, maybe--me. And that's
what hurts. She keeps writing now about what I'm fed on, how my duds are
washed and mended, and how long it will be before I get back home. All
that when I'm cracking jokes and arguing with old Whaley over some of
his hidebound Bible views about the end of the world. Why, he couldn't
predict the outcome of a county election, and yet he knows to the day
and hour when him and some more are going to be lifted up on a cloud of
glory and all the rest of us stand looking on, wringing our hands like
the bunch Noah left without a thing to cling to. But don't you let
anything I say about marriage influence you against it, my boy. It is
the greatest institution in the world to-day, and while I don't somehow
miss my wife, I'd die if I lost her. I know that as well as I know I'm
alive. There must be such a thing as loving folks you don't want to be
with all the time."

CHAPTER IX

That evening a wonderful thing happened to John. It was a moonlit night
and Cavanaugh took the two older Whaleys down to see the progress on the
new building. That left John and Tilly on the veranda together. At first
the poor boy's tongue was tied, but under the influence of Tilly's calm
self-possession he soon found himself conversing with her quite easily.
There was a sort of commotion in the chicken-house near the barn and
they started down there to see what had caused it. He had seen young men
of the better class at Ridgeville walking with young ladies, holding to
their arms at night, and in no little perturbation he wondered if he
ought to offer Tilly his arm. He did not know, and he wondered what Joel
Eperson would do in the circumstances. Finally he plunged into the
matter. "Won't you take my arm?" he asked, so naturally that he was
surprised at himself.

She did so, although the path was clear and the distance short, and the
gentle pressure of her hand on his arm sent an inexplicable thrill
through him. She even leaned slightly and confidently against his
shoulder, and that, too, was a wonderful experience. He was filled with
ecstatic emotion. He slowed down his step and clumsily adapted his long
stride to her shorter one. There was a vast, swelling joy in his throat.
At the barn-yard gate she released his arm and opened it, and at once he
had a fear that he had made a mistake in not forestalling her. He was
flooded with shame at the thought that J