"But he won't do it for me."
Ed rested his elbows on the table and fixed his bright black eyes on his father.
"Say, what d'you mean by actin' like a mule? I swear I'll trade you off f'r a yaller dog. What do I keep you round here. for anyway-to look purty?"
"I guess I've as good a right here as you have, Ed Kinney."
"Oh, go soak y'r head, old man. If you don't tend out here a little better, down goes your meat house! I won't drive you down to meetin' till you promise to fix that door. Hear me!"
Daddy began to snivel. Agnes could not look up for shame. Will felt sick. Ed laughed.
"I kin bring the old man to terms that way; he can't walk very well late years, an' he can't drive my colt. You know what a cuss I used to be about fast nags? Well, I'm just the same. Hobkirk's got a colt I want. Say, that re-minds me: your team's out there by the fence. I forgot. I'll go and put 'em up."
"No, never mind; I can't stay but a few minutes."
"Goin' to be round the country long?"
"A week-maybe."
Agnes looked up a moment and then let her eyes fall.
"Goin' back West, I s'pose?"
"No. May go East, to Europe mebbe."
"The devul y' say! You must 'a' made a ten-strike out West."
"They say it didn't come lawful," piped Daddy over his blackberries and milk.
"Oh, you shet up. Who wants your put-in? Don't work in any o' your Bible on us."
Daddy rose to go into the other room.
"Hold on, old man. You goin' to fix that door?"
"'Course I be," quavered he.
"Well see't y' do, that's all. Now git on y'r duds, an' I'll go an' hitch up." He rose from the table. "Don't keep me waiting."
He went out unceremoniously, and Agnes was alone with Will.
"Do you go to church? "he asked. She shook her head. "No, I don't go anywhere now. I have too much to do; I haven't strength left.
And I'm not fit anyway."
"Agnes, I want to say something to you; not now-after they're gone."
He went into the other room, leaving her to wash the dinner things.
She worked on in a curious, almost dazed way, a dream of something sweet and irrevocable in her eyes. He represented so much to her. His voice brought up times and places that thrilled her like song. He was associated with all that was sweetest and most carefree and most girlish in her life.
Ever since the boy had handed her that note she had been reliving those days. In the midst of her drudgery she stopped to dream-to let some picture come back into her mind. She was a student again at the seminary, and stood in the recitation room with suffocating beat of the heart. Will was waiting outside-waiting in a tremor like her own, to walk home with her under the maples.
Then she remembered the painfully sweet mixture of pride and fear with which she walked up the aisle of the little church behind him. Her pretty new gown rustled, the dim light of the church had something like romance in it, and he was so strong and handsome.
Her heart went out in a great silent cry to God-"Oh, let me be a girl again!"
She did not look forward to happiness. She hadn't power to look forward at all.
As she worked, she heard the high, shrill voices of the old people as they bustled about and nagged at each other.
"Ma, where's my specticles?"
"I ain't seen y'r specticles."
"You have, too."
"I ain't neither."
"You had 'em this forenoon."
"Didn't no such thing. Them was my own brass-bowed ones. You had yourn jest 'fore goin' to dinner. If you'd put 'em into a proper place you'd find 'em again."
"I want'o know if I would," the old man snorted'.
"Wal, you'd orter know."
"Oh, you're awful smart, ain't yeh? You never have no trouble, and use mine-do yeh?-an' lose 'em so't I can't "And if this is the thing that goes on when I'm here, it must be hell when visitors are gone," thought Will.
"Willy, ain't you goin' to meetin'?"
"No, not today. I want to visit a little with Agnes, then I've got to drive back to John's."
"Wal, we must be goin'. Don't you leave them dishes f't me to wash," she screamed at Agnes as she went out the door. "An' if we don't get home by five, them caaves orter be fed."
As Agnes stood at the door to watch them drive away, Will studied her, a smothering ache in his heart as he saw how thin and bent and weary she was. In his soul he felt that she was a dying woman unless she had rest and tender care.
As she turned, she saw something in his face-a pity and an agony of self-accusation-that made her weak and white. She sank into a chair, putting her hand on her chest, as if she felt a failing of breath. Then the blood came back to her face, and her eyes filled with tears.
"Don't-don't look at me like that," she said in a whisper. His pity hurt her.
At sight of her sitting there pathetic, abashed, bewildered, like some gentle animal, Will's throat contracted so that he could not speak. His voice came at last in one terrible cry-"Oh, Agnes! for God's sake forgive me!" He knelt by her side and put his arm about her shoulders and kissed her bowed head. A curious numbness involved his whole body; his voice was husky, the tears burned in his eyes. His whole soul and body ached with his pity and remorseful, self-accusing wrath.
"It was all my fault. Lay it all to me. .. I am the one to bear it. . . .
Oh, I've dreamed a thousand times of sayin' this to you, Aggie! I thought if I could only see you again and ask your forgiveness, I'd-"
He ground his teeth together in his assault upon himself. "I threw my life away an' killed you-that's what I did!"
He rose and raged up and down the room till he had mastered himself.
"What did you think I meant that day of the thrashing?" he said, turning suddenly. He spoke of it as if it were but a month or two past.
She lifted her head and looked at him in a slow way. She seemed to be remembering. The tears lay on her hollow cheeks.
"I thought you was ashamed of me. I didn't know-why-"
He uttered a snarl of sell-disgust.
"You couldn't know. Nobody could tell what I meant. But why didn't you write? I was ready to come back. I only wanted an excuse-only a line."
"How could I, Will-after your letter?"
He groaned and turned away.
"And Will, I-I got mad too. I couldn't write."
