"It shall come with the fulness of joy right here in Medicine Woods. Think it! Believe it! Keep it before you! Work for it! Happiness is worth while!
All of us have a right to it! It shall be yours and soon."
"I will try! I will!" promised the Girl. "I'll go right now and I'll put on the blessed pink powder so thickly you'll never know what is under it, and soon it won't be needed at all."
She was laughing as she left the room. The Harvester restlessly walked the floor a few minutes and then sat with a notebook and began entering stems.
When the Girl returned, he brought the pillow from her bed, folded the coverlet, and she lay on them in the big swing. He covered her with the white shawl, and while Singing Water sang its loudest, katydids exulted over the delightful act of their ancestor, and a million gauze-winged creatures of night hummed against the screen, in a voice soft and low he told her in a steady stream, as he swayed her back and forth, what each sound of the night was, and how and why it was made all the way from the rumbling buzz of the June bug to the screech of the owl and the splash of the bass in the lake. All of it, as it appealed to him, was the story of steady evolution, the natural processes of reproduction, the joy of life and its battles, and the conquest of the strong in nature. At his hands every sound was stripped of terror.
The leaping bass was exulting in life, the screeching owl was telling its mate it had found a fat mouse for the children, the nighthawk was courting, the big bull frogs booming around the lake were serenading the moon.
There was not a thing to fear or a voice left with an unsympathetic note in it. She was half asleep when at last he helped her to her room, set a pitcher of frosty, clinking drink on her table, locked her door and window screens inside, spread Belshazzar's blanket on her porch, and set his door wide open, that he might hear if she called, and then said good night and went back to his memorandum book.
"No bad beginning," he muttered softly, "no bad beginning, but I'd almost give my right hand if she hadn't forgotten----"
In her room the exhausted Girl slipped the pins from her hair and sank on the low chair before the dressing-table. She picked up the shining, silver backed brush and stared at the monogram, R. F. L, entwined on it.
"My soul!" she exclaimed. "WAS HE SO SURE AS THAT?
Was there ever any other man like him?"
She dropped the brush and with tired hands pushed back the heavy braids. Then she arose and going to the chest of drawers began lifting lids to find a night robe. As she searched the boxes she found every dainty, pretty undergarment a girl ever used and at last the robes. She shook out a long white one, slipped into it, and walked to the bed. That stood as he had arranged it, white, clean, and dainty.
"Everything for me!" she said softly. "Everything for me! Shall there be nothing for him? Oh he makes it easy, easy!"
She stepped to the closet, picked down a lavender silk kimona and drawing it over her gown she gathered it around her and opening the bathroom door, she stepped into a little hall leading to the dining-room. As she entered the living-room the Harvester bent over his book.
Her step was very close when he heard it and turned his head. In an instant she touched his shoulders. The Harvester dropped the pencil, and palm downward laid his hands on the table, his promise strong in his heart.
The Girl slid a shaking palm under his chin, leaned his head against her breast, and dropped a sweet, tear-wet face on his. With all the strength of her frail arms she gripped him a second, and then gave the kiss, into which she tried to put all she could find no words to express.
