Other Main-Travelled Roads. Garland Hamlin

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      "Oh, Lime, s'pose somebody should see us?"

      "Let 'em. What in thunder do we care? Sit down an' gimme a holt o' them cakes. I'm just about done up. I couldn't 'a' stood it another minute."

      She sat down beside him with a laugh and a pretty blush. She was in her apron, and the sleeves of her dress were rolled to her elbows, displaying the strong, round arms. Wholesome and sweet she looked and smelled, the scent of the cooking round her. Lyman munched a couple of the cookies and gulped a pint of milk before he spoke.

      "Whadda we care who sees us sittin' side b' side? Ain't we goin' t' be married soon?"

      "Oh, them cookies in the oven!" she shrieked, leaping up and running to the house. She looked back as she reached the kitchen door, however, and smiled with a flushed face. Lime slapped his knee and roared with laughter at his bold stroke.

      "Ho! ho!" he laughed. "Didn't I do it slick? Ain't nothin' green in my eye, I guess." In an intense and pleasurable abstraction he finished the cookies and the milk. Then he yelled:—

      "Hey! Merry—Merry Etty!"

      "Whadda ye want?" sang the girl from the window, her face still rosy with confusion.

      "Come out here and git these things."

      The girl shook her head, with a laugh.

      "Come out an' git 'm, 'r, by jingo, I'll throw 'em at ye! Come on, now!"

      The girl looked at the huge, handsome fellow, the sun falling on his golden hair and beard, and came slowly out to him—came creeping along with her hand outstretched for the plate which Lime, with a laugh in his sunny blue eyes, extended at the full length of his bare arm. The girl made a snatch at it, but his left hand caught her by the wrist, and away went cup and plate as he drew her to him and kissed her in spite of her struggles.

      "My! ain't you strong!" she said, half ruefully and half admiringly, as she shrugged her shoulders. "If you'd use a little more o' that choppin' wood, Dad wouldn't 'a' lost s' much money by yeh."

      Lime grew grave.

      "There's the hog in the fence, Merry; what's yer dad goin' t' say—"

      "About what?"

      "About our gitt'n married this spring."

      "I guess you'd better find out what I'm a-goin' t' say, Lime Gilman, 'fore you pitch into Dad."

      "I know what you're a-goin' t' say."

      "No, y' don't."

      "Yes, but I do, though."

      "Well, ask me, and see, if you think you're so smart. Jest as like 's not, you'll slip up."

      "All right; here goes. Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin' t' be married?"

      "No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and darting away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss at her, and fell to work on his log with startling energy.

      Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of anything—but a girl.

      Marietta was not only the old man's only child, but his housekeeper, his wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.

      Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming axe into the huge maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man, being a lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for Bacon. He had a nice "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first night in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to him, for, as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks an' poor feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty mornin's and the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like it was when I worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my toes curl up."

      But he went resolutely out to work again, and here he was chopping wood in old man Bacon's yard, thinking busily on the talk which had just passed between Marietta and himself.

      "By jingo!" he said all at once, stopping short, with the axe on his shoulder. "If I hadn't 'a' been robbed I wouldn't 'a' come here—I never'd met Merry. Thunder and jimson root! Wasn't that a narrow escape?"

      And then he laughed so heartily that the girl looked out of the window again to see what in the world he was doing. He had his hat in his hand and was whacking his thigh with it.

      "Lyman Gilman, what in the world ails you to-day? It's perfectly ridiculous the way you yell and talk t' y'rself out there on the chips. You beat the hens, I declare if you don't."

      Lime put on his hat and walked up to the window, and, resting his great bare arms on the sill, and his chin on his arms, said:—

      "Merry, I'm goin' to tackle 'Dad' this afternoon. He'll be sittin' up the new seeder, and I'm goin' t' climb right on the back of his neck. He's jest got t' give me a chance."

      Marietta looked sober in sympathy.

      "Well! P'raps it's best to have it over with, Lime, but someway I feel kind o' scary about it."

      Lime stood for a long time looking in at the window, watching the light-footed girl as she set the table in the middle of the sun-lighted kitchen floor. The kettle hissed, the meat sizzled, sending up a delicious odor; a hen stood in the open door and sang a sort of cheery half-human song, while to and fro moved the sweet-faced, lithe, and powerful girl, followed by the smiling eyes at the window.

      "Merry, you look purty as a picture. You look just like the wife I be'n a-huntin' for all these years, sure's shootin'."

      Marietta colored with pleasure.

      "Does Dad pay you to stand an' look at me an' say pretty things t' the cook?"

      "No, he don't. But I'm willin' t' do it without pay. I could just stand here till kingdom come an' look at you. Hello! I hear a wagon. I guess I better hump into that woodpile."

      "I think so too. Dinner's most ready, and Dad 'll be here soon."

      Lime was driving away furiously at a tough elm log when Farmer Bacon drove into the yard with a new seeder in his wagon. Lime whacked away busily while Bacon stabled the team, and in a short time Marietta called, in a long-drawn, musical fashion:—

      "Dinner-r-r!"

      After sozzling their faces at the well the two men went in and sat down at the table. Bacon was not much of a talker at any time, and at meal-time, in seeding, eating was the main business in hand; therefore the meal was a silent one, Marietta and Lime not caring to talk on general topics. The hour was an anxious one for her, and an important one for him.

      "Wal, now, Lime, seedun' 's the СКАЧАТЬ