She kissed Martha impulsively. "Oh, you bet you'll get married, Martha, and I'll be your bridesmaid—me and Bud will be it—and Lib Cavers will be maid of honour and carry a shock of lilacs, and I'll write a piece about it for the paper."

Martha smiled bravely, and Pearl was too polite to notice that her eyes were suspiciously dewy.

"Oh, no, Pearl," she said, as she put away all the things carefully, "I guess I'll never be married; but I love to make these things, and when I'm sewing at them I often imagine things, foolish things that'll never be; but I have them all ready, anyway"—she was closing down her trunk lid—"I have them ready, anyway—in case—well, just in case——".



CHAPTER XV

THE SOWING

"And other fell on good ground."

"EVERYTHING else is pretty only the old school," said Mary Watson. "Look at the sky and the grass and the spruce trees on the sandhills—all nice colours only the old school, and it's just a grindy-gray-russet inside and out."

Mary was a plain-spoken young lady of ten.

"Well, we can clean it, anyway," Pearl said hopefully. "If we get it clean it won't look so bad, even if it ain't pretty; and we can get lots of violets, though they don't show much; but we'll know they're there; and we can get cherry-blossoms and put them in something big on the desk for the minister to look over, and they'll do him good, for he'll see that somebody thought about it."

Maudie Steadman did not think much of the idea of violets and cherry-blossoms. Maudie was fat, and had pale freekles all over her face and on her hands. She talked in a jerky way, and was always out of breath.

"Perhaps we could get Maw's tissue-paper flowers. She's got lovely purple roses and yellow ones, and the like o' that," Maudie said.

Pearl considered it awhile.

"No, Maudie," she said. "Paper roses are fine in the winter, but in the summer, if you use them, it looks as if you don't think much of the kind that God's puttin' up, and you think you can do better yourself. So I think with lots of meadow rue for the green stuff and violets and blossoms, it'll be all right. Anyway, when the people get in with their Sunday clothes on, and the flowers on their hats, it'll take the bare look off it."

When Sunday came it seemed as if it were a day specially prepared for the beginning of religious instruction in the Chicken Hill School. The sky was cloudless save for little gauzy white flakes—"puffs of chiffon that had blown off the angels' hats," Mary Watson said they were. The grain was just high enough to run in waves before the wind, and even Grandfather Gray, Mrs. Steadman's father, admitted that the "craps were as far on as he'd ever seen them"; but in order that no one could accuse him of stirring up false hopes, he pointed out that "the wheat has a long way to go yet before the snow flies, and there's lots that might happen it."

By half-past two o'clock, the time set for the service, the yard was well filled with buggies and waggons, while knots of men, looking uncomfortable in high collars, stood discussing the crops and the price of horses, all in the best of humour. When they saw the minister's gray horse coming, the minister himself became the subject of conversation.

"It beats me," George Steadman said, springing the lid of his pipe with his thumb as he struck a match on the sole of his boot, "it beats me what a man sees in preaching as a steady job. It's easy work, all right, only one day in the week; but there's no money in it. A man can make more money at almost anything else he goes at"—he was thinking of short-horns—"and be more independent. It certainly beats me why they do it."

"Did ye ever hear, George, of greater rewards than money, and a greater happiness than being independent?" Roderick Ray, the Scottish Covenanter, asked gently, as he unbuckled his "beast" from the cart. Roderick Ray had a farm on Oak Creek, three miles east of the schoolhouse. "Yon man is a Methodist, an' I'm na' sa fond o' them as o' some ithers, but I can see he has the root o' the matter in him for all; and I'm thinkin' that he has the smile o' his Lord and Master on him, an' that's better nor gold, nor siller, nor houses, nor lands, nor cattle on a thousand hills; for, after all, George, these things slip frae us easy and we slip away frae them easier still, an' it's then we'll hear the Good Man ask: 'An' hoo did ye spend the years I gave ye? Did ye warn the sinner, teach the young, feed the hungry an' comfort the sad?' An' I'm thinkin', George, that to all this yon little man, Methoda body though he be, will be able to give a verra guid answer an' a very acceptable one."

The men sat on one side of the school, and the women on the other. Even a very small boy, when he found himself sitting with the women, made a scurry across to the other side. Danny Watson alone of the male portion of the congregation was unaffected by this arrangement, and clung to his sister Pearl, quite oblivious of public opinion.

Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne sat beside the window, in the seat ahead of Danny, Mary, and Pearl. Mrs. Cavers's eyes were on the group of men at the woodpile, for Bill was among them, very much smartened up in his good clothes. She had had some difficulty in persuading him to come. He wanted to stay at home and sleep, he said. While the men talked beside the woodpile, Sandy Braden, the hotelkeeper, drove up with his pacing horse and rubber-tired buggy. He stopped to talk to the men. Sandy was a very genial fellow, and a general favourite.

Mrs. Cavers sat perfectly still; only the compression of her lips showed her agitation.

"Come on, Bill, and I'll give you a good swift ride," she heard him say.

Bill hesitated and looked around uneasily. Sandy gave him a significant wink and then he went without a word.

Inside, Mrs. Cavers gave a little smothered cry, which Libby Anne understood. She moved nearer to her mother in sympathy.

Mrs. Cavers leaned forward, straining her eyes after the cloud of dust that marked the pacing horse's progress, clasping and unclasping her hands in wordless misery. Bill was gone—she had lost him again. The wind drove ripples in the grain, the little white clouds hung motionless in the sky, but Bill was gone, and the sun, bright and pitiless, was shining over all. Then the other men came in and the service began.

The singing was led by Roderick Ray, who had the Covenanters' blood in his veins. He carried a tuning-fork with him always, and fitted the psalm tunes to the hymns, carrying them through in a rolling baritone, and swinging his whole body to the motion.

The Reverend John Burrell was a student of men. He had travelled the North-West before the days of railways, by dog-train, snow-shoes, and horse-back, preaching in the lumber camps and later on in the railway camps, and it was a deep grief to him when his health broke down and he was compelled to take a smaller appointment. He liked to be on the firing-line. He was a gentle, shrewd, resourceful man, whose sense of humour and absolute belief in the real presence of God had carried him over many a rough place.

As he stood before his congregation this day in the schoolhouse, a great compassion for the men and women before him filled his heart. He saw their lives, so narrow and bare and self-centred; he read the hard lines that the struggle with drought and hail and weeds had written on their faces; and so he spoke to them, not as a stranger might speak, but as a brother, working with them, who also had carried burdens and felt the sting of defeat; but who had gone a little farther down the road, and had come back to tell them to persevere, for things were better farther on!

He had had to do with travel-stained, wayfaring men for so long that he had got into the way of handing out to them at once, when he had the opportunity, the richest treasures of his Father's storehouse. When they looked to him for bread they were not given a stone, and so, standing in the bare schoolroom that day, he preached to them Christ, the Saviour of mankind, and showed the way of life eternal.

There was something very winsome about Mr. Burrell's preaching, not because of his eloquence, for he was a man of plain speech, low-voiced and gentle, but because he spoke with the quiet certainty of one who sees Him who is invisible. Near the front sat Bud Perkins and Teddy Watson, athletic-looking young fellows, clear-eyed and clean-skinned, just coming into their manhood, and there was a responsiveness in the boys' faces that made the minister address his appeal directly to them as he set before them the two ways, asking them to choose the higher, the way of loving service and Christlike endeavour.

When the service was over, Mrs. Burrell went around shaking hands with the women. "I am so glad we thought of holding service here," she said genially. "You people do turn out so well. Is this Mrs. Cavers?" she asked, as she shook hands with Mrs. Steadman.

Pearl Watson put her right.

Mrs. Steadman, in a broad black hat resplendent with cerise roses, stiffened perceptibly, but Mrs. Burrell did not notice this, but rattled on in her gayest humour. "I always do get those names mixed. I knew there were the two families out here."

She then turned to Mrs. Slater and Mrs. Motherwell. "It is a bare-looking school, isn't it?" she said amiably. "You women ought to try to fix it up some. It does look so wind-swept and parched and cheerless." Mrs. Burrell prided herself on her plain speaking.

At this Mrs. Steadman, who was a large, pompous woman, became so indignant that the cerise roses on her hat fairly shook. "I guess it doesn't keep the children from learning," she said hotly; "and that's mostly what a school is for."

"Oh, you are quite wrong, Mrs. Steadman," Mrs. Burrell replied, wondering just how it had happened that she had given Mrs. Steadman cause for offence. "Perhaps you think it doesn't prevent the children from learning, but it does. There's plenty of other things for children to learn besides what is in the books. Maybe they didn't learn them when you were young, but it would have been better if they had. Children should have a bed of flowers, and a little garden and trees to play under."

"Well, you can have them for yours," Mrs. Steadman said harshly, narrowing her eyes down to glittering slits. She knew that Mrs. Burrell had no children living; but when Mrs. Steadman's anger rose she tried to say the bitterest thing she could think of.

Mrs. Burrell was silent for a moment or two. Then she said gently: "My little girl has them, Mrs. Steadman. She has the flowers that never fade, and she needs no shade from trees, for no heat shall fall upon them there. I wasn't thinking of my own, I was thinking of yours and the other children who come here."

"Well, I guess we've done more for the school than anybody else anyway," Mrs. Steadman said loftily. "We pay taxes on nineteen hundred acres of land, and only send two children."

Mrs. Slater and Mrs. Motherwell joined the conversation then, and endeavoured to smooth down Mrs. Steadman's ruled plumage.

"She ain't goin' to dictate to us," Mrs. Steadman declared vehemently, after Mrs. Burrell had gone to speak to Mrs. Watson and Aunt Kate. Mrs. Steadman had a positive dread of having any person "dictate" to her.

Teddy Watson hitched up Mrs. Cavers's horse. There was still no sign of Bill, and after a little talk with Martha Slater she and Libby Anne drove sadly home.

Bud Perkins got the minister's horse ready and stood holding it while Mr. Burrell was talking to Roderick Ray, who wanted to be sure how Mr. Burrell stood on election. When the conversation was over Mr. Burrell walked over to where Bud was holding his horse. A sudden impulse seized him. "Bud," he said gently, laying his hand on the boy's shoulder, "I wonder if you are the good ground? I wonder if you are going to let the seed grow?"

Bud turned and looked the minister straight in the face, while a fine flush came into his own. "I am going to try," he said simply.

Mr. Burrell took hold of Bud's hand and said earnestly: "God only knows what can be made of a young man who is willing to try."

Bud's eyes were shining with emotion as he returned the handclasp. And thus the good seed was sown in the fertile soil of Bud Perkins's heart, destined to be cruelly choked by weeds in the evil days to come, but never quite forgotten by the Master Sower!

* * *

On the way home Bud was strangely lent, and Martha, with quick intuition, divined the cause. A great wave of emotion was surging through the boy's heart, a great new love for every one and everything; he wanted to do something, to suffer, to endure. Every ripple that ran over the grain, every note of the robin and meadowlark, the rustle of the leaves above them as they drove through the poplar grove on the school section, were to him the voices of God calling him to loving service.

"Martha," he said suddenly, "I haven't been very good to you, have I, old girl? Lots of times I could have been nicer and helped you more. I want to be better to you now. I never thought of it before, but I know that I've often let you do things that I might have done myself. I am going to be kinder and better, I hope."

Martha was not ready of speech. "You're all right, Bud," she said. "I knew how you feel, and I'm glad."



CHAPTER XVI

SPIRITUAL ADVISORS

Like tides on a crescent sea-beach When the moon is new and thin, Into our hearts high yearnings Come welling and surging in— Come from the mystic ocean whose rim no foot has trod. Some of us call it longing And others call it God.

——W. H. Carruth.

WHEN Bud and Martha reached home, Bud went straight to his father who was sitting in his stockinged feet, yawning over a machinery catalogue. "Dad," he said, "I'm going to be a better boy than I've been."

"How's that, Buddie?" Mr. Perkins asked suspiciously.

Bud coloured uncomfortably. "I've made up my mind to be e a Christian, father," he answered, after a pause.

"All right, Bud, that's all right," the old man answered, letting the catalogue fall to the floor. "A little religion is a fine thing, and no one should be without it. I'm a religious man myself, Buddie, if any one should ask you. I can always ask a blessing at the table when there's company—you know that yourself—and I've attended church for years; I never miss goin' the Sunday the Foresters get preached to. I favour the Church of England, myself, though your ma's folks always patronized the Methodists. I like the Church of England best because they can give you such a dandy funeral, no matter who you are, by George! and no questions asked. They sure can give a fellow a great send-off. This little Burrell is a Methodist, isn't he?"

"Yes, he's a Methodist," said Bud.

"Well, now, Bud, I don't want to discourage you, but you have to be careful how you get mixed up with them Methodists; they go too far and are apt to overdo things. You mind when there was them big revival meetings at Millford a few years ago. Well, sir, Brown, the druggist, got religion and burned up all his pipes and tobacco; they tell me they were as fine a stock of briar-roots and amber mouthpieces as any person would care to see; people who raked over the as ashes tell me it was a' terrible sight altogether—and he was a smart man up to that time, makin' good ney sellin' rain-water for medicine. Now, Buddie, go slow. I don't mind you goin' to church and chippin' in your nickel when the plate passes, and it's all right to buy stuff at their sales. I mind when the Church of England ladies raffled off that quilt, I bought two ten-cent throws, and never kicked when I didn't get it. I says: 'Oh, well, it's gone for a good cause.' But don't let them get too strong a hold on you."

"But, father," Bud said earnestly, "I want to stand up for everything that's right. I want to be straight and honest, and help people, and I've just been thinkin' about it—it's not fair to plug wheat the way we've been doing—it's not right to pretend that it's all first class when there's frozen grain in it."

Thomas Perkins grew serious.

"Buddie, dear," he said, "you're gettin' cluttered up with a lot of bum ideas. A farmer has to hold his own against everybody else. They're all trying to fleece him, and he's got to fool them if he can. I'm honest myself, Bud, you know that; but there's nothing pleases me quite so well as to be able to get eighty-seven cents a bushel for wheat that I would only be gettin' fifty-three for if I hadn't taken a little trouble when I was fillin' it up."

"But it would make a fellow feel mean to get caught," Bud said, trying to get hold of an argument that would have weight.

"A fellow needn't be caught, Bud, if he ain't too graspin'. You don't need to plug every time. They know blame well when a fellow has some frozen wheat, and it don't do to draw in No. I hard or No. I Northern every time. It's safest to plug it just one grade above what it is. Oh, it's a game, Bud, and it takes a good player. Now, son, you run along and bring up the cows, and don't you be worryin' about religion. That's what happened me brother Jimmy, your own poor uncle. He got all taken up with the Seventh Day Adventists, and his hired help was gettin' two Sundays a week—he wouldn't let them work Saturday and they wouldn't work Sunday. Your poor uncle was afraid to let them work on Saturday, for, accordin' to his religion, you'd be damned if you let your hired help work just the same as if you worked yourself; but he used to say he'd be damned if he'd let them sit idle and him payin' them big wages, and it was a bad mix-up, I tell you. And then there was old man Redmond, he got religion and began to give back things he said he'd stole—brought back bags to Steadman that he 'said he stole at a threshin' at my place; but they had Steadman's name on them. It made lots of trouble, Bud, and I never saw anything but trouble come out of this real rip-roarin' Methodist religion, and I don't want you to get mixed up in it."

Bud went down the ravine that led to the river with a troubled heart. There was something sweet and satisfying just within reach, but it eluded him as he tried to grasp it. Bud had never heard of conviction of sin, repentance and justification, but he knew that a mysterious something was struggling within him. He found the cows, and turned them homeward. Then he flung himself on the grassy slope of the river-bank and gave himself to bitter reflections. "There is no use of me tryin' to be anybody," he thought sadly. "I don't know anything, and I'd just make a fool of myself if I was to try to do anything."

A flock of plovers circled over his head, rapidly whirring their wings, then sailing easily higher and higher into the blue of the evening sky. He looked after them enviously.

"Things don't bother those chaps," he said to himself.

He started up suddenly. Some one was calling his name. Looking across the ravine, he saw Pearl Watson standing outside the fence.

"Hello, Bud!" she shouted. "What's wrong?"

He ran down the bank and up the opposite side of the ravine.

"I am all out of humour, Pearl," he said. "I wish I had never been born. I'm a big awkward lump."

Pearl looked at him closely.

"That's the devil, Bud," she said gravely. "He gets into people and tells them they're no good, an' never will be. It's just his way of keepin' people from doin' good things. You see, Bud, the devil ain't so terrible particular about gettin' us to do bad things as just to keep us from doin' good ones. If you do nothin' at all it will please him all right, for all you've got to do to be lost is to do nothin'. It's just like a stick in the river. If it just keeps quiet it will go down stream, and so it is with us—things is movin' that way. Now, Bud, them's wrong thoughts you're havin' about not bein' any good. You can see, hear and talk, and sense things—that's all anybody can do. You're big and strong, and most likely will live fifty years. Here, now, God has set you up with a whole outfit—what are you goin' to do with it?"

"That's what I don't know, Pearl," he said. "What can I do? Where can I go where I'll be any real use?"

"You don't need to leave home, Bud," Pearl said; "you don't need to be et up by cannibals to be a Christian. Stay right at home and go on and work and do your work better than ever; just do it as if God Himself was lookin' over your shoulder; and be that kind and gentle that even the barn cats'll know who you're tryin' to be like. Earn all the money you can, too, Bud. Do you know what I'm goin' to do with my first money I earn? I'll be seventeen before I can teach, and with the first money I get I'll send some to support a little girl in India. She'll be called Pearl and I'll bring her up a Bible-woman."

"I'm all discouraged," Bud said.

Pearl leaned over the fence and said earnestly: "Bud, when I get discouraged I take it as a sign that I haven't been keepin' prayed up, and I go right at it and pray till I get feelin' fine. I'm goin' to pray now."

She knelt down on her side of the fence. He did the same.

"Oh, God!" she said, "here's Bud all balled up in his mind, wantin' to do right, but not knowin' how to go at it. I guess you've often seen people like that, and know better how to go about strengthenin' them up than I can tell You. Bud's all right of a boy, too, dear Lord, when he gets a real grip on things. You should have seen him wallop the daylight out of young Tom Steadman when he hit Lib Cavers. I wasn't there; but they tell me is was something grand. Bless him now, dear Lord, and never, never let go of Bud. Even if he lets go of You, keep your grip on him. For the dear Saviour's sake, Amen."

They rose from their knees and shook hands silently through the barbed wire.

"I wish I could believe as easy as you, Pearl," Bud said.

"Look over there, Bud," she cried, pointing to the little house beside the bluff. The setting sun had caught the western windows and lit them into flame. "It's just like that with any of us, Bud. That old windy is all cracked and patched, but look how it shines when the sun gets a full blaze on it. That's like us, Bud. We're no good ourselves, we're cracked and patched, but when God's love gets a chance at us we can shine and glow."

"You're a great kid, Pearl," he said.

She laughed delightedly. "I'm like the windy," she said; "God puts good thoughts in me because I keep turned broadside and catch all that's comin' my way. Go home now, Bud, and don't ever say you're discouraged again."

They shook hands again silently through the fence, and parted.

Through the tall elms and balms that fringed the river Bud could see the Souris slipping swiftly over its shining pebbles, a broad ribbon of gold coming out of the West, and it seemed as if some of the glory of the sunset was coming to him on its sparkling waters. His eye followed its course until it disappeared around the bend. A new tenderness for it and a new sense of companionship filled his heart.

"Good old Souris," he said, as he turned homeward.

* * *

On the Watson farm there were many improvements being made. The old machinery that littered the yard had been taken away to the poplar grove near by, where the boys spent many happy hours constructing threshing-machines. On Arbour Day, under Pearl's inspection, each child went to the river flat and dug up a small maple tree, and planted it in front of where the new house was going to be. Pearl had the exact location of the new house firmly fixed in her mind before she had been many days on the farm, and soon had every person, even Aunt Kate, helping to beautify the grounds. A wide hedge of the little wild rosebushes which grew plentifully along the headlands, was set out behind where the house was to stand, to divide the lawn from the garden, Pearl said, and although to the ordinary eye they were a weedy looking lot, to Pearl's optimistic vision they, were already aglow with fragrant bloom. Aunt Kate sent down east to her sister Lib for roots of sweet Mary, ribbon-grass, and live-forever, all of which came, took root, and grew in the course of time.

Pearl's dream of a fine chicken-house under the trees began to assume tangible form when Mrs. Slater came to call, and brought with her a fine yellow hen and thirteen little woolly chicks. Mrs. Motherwell came, too, and brought with her a similar offering, only hers were Plymouth Rocks. Mrs. John Green brought nine little fluffy ducklings and their proud but perplexed mother, a fine white Orpington. Gifts like these often accompany first calls in the agricultural districts of the West. They answer the purpose of, and indeed have some advantage over, the engraved card with lower left-hand corner turned down, in expressing friendly greetings to all members of the family.

Temporary dwellings were hastily constructed of packing boxes for the hens and their respective flocks, but after seeding, a real henhouse, made of logs with a sod roof, was erected.

One thing troubled Pearl's conscience. She was not sure that they had been real square with the Caverses. It was quite legal for them to take possession of the farm, of course, for Bill Cavers had abandoned it; but should they not pay something for the improvements that had been made? The house had sheltered them, and the stable, such as it was, was better than no stable—it did not seem right to take it for nothing. She spoke to her father about it, and he readily agreed with her, and said they would "do something" when they saw how the crop turned out.

Pearl worked hard at school, and made such rapid progress that one day Mr. Donald told her, after reading one of her compositions, that he believed he could "put her through for a teacher" in a couple of years, she was doing so well. Pearl stared at him speechless with joy. Then she went to the window and looked out at the glorious June day, that all at once had grown more glorious still. The whole landscape seemed to Pearl to be swimming in a golden mist. An oriole flew carolling gaily over the woodpile, singing the very song that was in her own heart. When she came back to the teacher's desk her eyes were shining with happy tears.

"Just to think," she said in a tremulous voice, "that I can do me duty to the boys and git me stifficate at the same time! I just feel like I ought to apologize to God for ever doubtin' that I'd get it." Then she told the teacher of the fears she had when coming out on the farm, that she would have no further chance of an education. "And now," she concluded, "here I am doin' me duty and gettin' me chance at the same time. Ain't that happiness enough for any one?"

The teacher looked at her wonderingly. "You're a cheerful philosopher, Pearl," he said gravely, "and you make me wish I was twenty years younger."

Pearl looked in her dictionary to find what "philosopher" meant, but even then she could not imagine why Mr. Donald wanted to be twenty years younger.

After Pearl's visit to the Perkins home, when Martha showed her all her treasures, her active brain had been busy devising means of improving Martha, mentally and physically. After consulting with Camilla, Pearl went over to see Martha again, full enthusiasm and beauty-producing devices. She put Martha through a series of calisthenics and breathing exercises she had learned at school, for Martha was inclined to stoop, and Camilla had said that "a graceful carriage was one of the most important things."

Martha had never had any money of her own, having always sold her butter to the store and received due bills in return. Thomas Perkins was not mean about anything but money—he would gladly give to his children anything else that he possessed—but he considered it a very unlucky thing to part with money. Pearl saw plainly that cold cash was necessary for carrying out her plans for Martha, and so, acting on Camilla's suggestion, she got customers for Martha's butter who would pay her cash every week.

She got for Martha, too, a lotion for her hands which, put on regularly every night, was sure to soften and whiten them. She showed her how to treat her hair to make it lose its 'hard, stringy look. Camilla had written out full instructions and sent a piece of the soap that would do the work.

When Martha got her first butter money she sent for the magazine that she had wanted her father to give her the money for before, and when the first number came, she read it diligently and became what the magazine people would call a "good user." Pearl had inspired in her a belief in her own possibilities, and it was wonderful to see how soon she began to make the best of herself.



CHAPTER XVII

THE PIONEERS' PICNIC

It is always fair weather When good fellows get together.

——Old Song.

THE Pioneers' Picnic was the great annual social event of the Souris Valley, and was looked forward to by young and old. It was held each year on the first day of July, on the green flats below the town of Millford. In John Watson's home, as in many others, preparations for it began early.

One very necessary part of the real enjoyment of a holiday is cash, cold, hard cash, for ice-cream, lemonade; and "Long Toms" can only be procured in that way.

Tommy and Patsey for the first time bitterly regretted their country residence, for if they had been in Millford, they said, they could have delivered parcels and run errands and have had a hundred dollars saved easy. Pearl suggested the black bottles that were so numerous in the bush as a possible source of revenue, and so every piece of scrub and the bluff behind the house were scoured for bottles. Thirty-seven were found, and were cleaned and boxed ready for the day.

Then Bugsey's conscience woke up and refused to be silenced. "Lib Cavers ought to have them," he said sadly.

The others scouted the idea. Bugsey was as loath to part with them as the others; but they had their consciences under control and Bugsey had not.

"She couldn't take them in and sell them," said Tommy, speaking very loudly and firmly, to drown the voice of his conscience. "It wouldn't be dacent, everybody knowin' where they came from, and what was in them, and where it went to, and who it was, and all."

Tommy had ideas on what constituted good form.

Pearl was called upon to settle it and, after some thought, gave her decision.

"If you give Lib Cavers one package of 'Long Tom' popcorn and one of gum for a present, it'll be all right. Don't tell her why yer givin' it to her—just say, 'Present from a friend,' when you hand it to her."

"Maybe she don't like popcorn, anyway," Bugsey said, beginning to hope; "and I don't believe her ma will let her chew gum; and it don't look nice for little girls," he added virtuously.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Tommy, who was a diplomat. "We'll give it to her ma to give to her."

"Offer it, you mean," corrected Patsey; '"give it' means she tuk it."

Aunt Kate had been busy making suits for her young nephews all spring, for Aunt Kate was very handy with the needle. She had made shirts for Teddy and Billy with elaborate "flossin'" down the front, so elaborate indeed that it threatened to upset the peace of the family. Billy rebelled openly, and Teddy said when he was out of his Aunt's hearing, that he would rather go without a shirt than wear that scalloped thing. Aunt Kate was serene through it all, and told them how fond their Uncle Bill had been of that same pea-vine pattern. Pearl saw at once that there was going to be a family jar, and so saved the situation by getting Martha Perkins to make wide silk ties for the two boys, wide enough to hide the ramifications of the pea-vine—and then to avoid the uncomfortable questioning of Aunt Kate, she hid her glasses on the evening of June the thirtieth. "Anyway," Pearl said to herself, "she might get them broke on a big day like the 'First,' and she can see plenty without them, so she can."

The 'morning of July the first broke clear and sparkling, and before six o'clock the whole Watson family were stirring. Out in the garden the four little boys were pulling radishes and tying them into bunches. Mary, her hair done in many tight little pigtails, was doing a flourishing business' in lettuce. Jimmy was at the head of the green onion department. The Watsons had the contract of supplying green vegetables to the hotel for the day.

Pearl and Aunt Kate were sorting out clothes, while Mrs. Watson got the breakfast.

Down on the river-bank John Watson was cutting down poles for the new stable that he was going to put up in the fall. There was a great contentment in his heart as he looked at his twenty acres of wheat and the same of oats. The season had been so favourable that although the grain had been sown late, it was now well advanced. A field of fifteen acres farther up the river had been cleared and ploughed and would be in crop next year, and as he looked at his land in the sparkling morning sunshine something of Pearl's optimistic vision came to him, and in his fancy he saw all the roots and scrub cleared away and replaced by magnificent fields of grain, dappled with light and shade, his pasture full of cattle, a comfortable house instead of the weatherworn one before him, himself and the "Missus" enjoying peace and plenty; and the children growing up in wisdom's ways; and Pearlie—his heart's treasure, little Pearl, with the "natest fut in the country, and the sparrow shins of her"—Pearlie getting her chance.

"Faith, there's few of them can bate our Pearlie, I'm thinkin', if she can only get the chance."

By ten o'clock active preparations began on the junior members of the family. Mary's hair showed that putting in fourteen hard braids the night before is worth the trouble. She had a lovely barred muslin made out of an old one of Aunt Kate's that she couldn't wear now, being in mourning.

There were new suits for some, clean suits for all, and the only disturbance that occurred was when Danny would not "hold still" while Pearl fastened the front of his blouse; but just a hint of leaving him at home, made a better boy of Danny at once.

Bugsey, who was the first one dressed, went out to watch the weather, and in a short time came running in, in tears. There was a cloud coming up, and Bugsey, the pessimist, knew it was going to rain.

Pearl backed Danny out of the door, holding tight by his tie-strings, to look at the weather. Sure enough, black clouds had formed in the west, and were marching relentlessly up the sky. The whole family came out to look. In the east the sun blazed bright and unconcerned. The old pig ran past them carrying a wisp of hay in her mouth, and by common impulse three of the boys threw sticks after her. She was just trying to make it rain—she couldn't go to the picnic herself, and she'd just like to see it rain! Little whirls of wind circled around in the hip-yard, and there was an ominous roll of distant thunder. Loud wails broke from Bugsey, Danny, and Mary, and when the edge of the cloud went over the sun and the whole landscape darkened the wails became general.

"Come into the house," commanded Pearl, "it's only goin' to be a shower and lay the dust. Cheer up, there's enough blue 'sky to make a pair of pants, and it's not time for us to be goin' yet, anyway."

The tearful family followed her into the house and sat in doleful silence watching the big drops that began to beat on the western window.

Pearl was a strong believer in work as a remedy for worry. Jimmy was put to tightening up the buttons on his new suit. Tommy blackened boots with lampblack and lard, and Bugsey, who was weeping copiously, was put to counting radishes as a little bit of "busy work."

Pearl kept up a brave show of confidence in the weather, but Mrs. Watson's and Aunt Kate's contributions to the conversation were all of a humid character and dealt with spoiled feathers, parasols blown inside out, and muslin dresses so spattered with mud that they were not worth bringing home.

Pearl continued her preparations in the face of great discouragement. Aunt Kate foretold a three days' rain—it looked to be settlin' that way, and besides, look at that old gray hen, she hadn't gone in, and that was a sure sign of a long rain. This brought a renewed downpour in the house.

Pearl grew desperate. "Look at all the other hens that did go in," she said, as she tied the bows in her own hair. "I don't see the sense of taking that crazy old ike of a hen's word for it against all the other hens that have gone in. She's a mournful old thing, and is staying out to make the other ones feel bad, or else she don't know enough to go in. Hurry up, Mary, and get all that stuff in; it's a quarter to eleven now, and we've got Tommy to do yet when he's done with the boots. It's none of our business whether it rains now or not. We're not wantin' to go just now."

"Pearlie, dear," her mother said, "you're raisin' too many hopes in them."

"Hopes!" Pearl cried. "Did you say hopes, Ma? They look like a bunch with too many hopes, settin' there blubberin' their eyes out and spoiling their looks."

By eleven o'clock everything was ready but the weather, and then, as if it suddenly dawned on the elements that this was hardly a square deal on Pioneers' Picnic day, the clouds parted right over John Watson's house, and a patch of blue sky, ever widening, smiled down encouragingly. Sorrow was changed to joy. Bugsey dried his eyes when he saw the sun shining on the Brandon Hills.

A little breeze frolicked over the trees and flung down the raindrops in glittering showers, and at exactly a quarter past eleven the Watson family, seated on three seats in the high-boxed waggon, drove gaily out of the yard.

"Sure, we enjoy it all the better for getting the scare," said Mary the philosopher.

The Perkinses, in their two-seated buggy, were just ahead on the road. Even Martha, encouraged by Pearl, was coming to the picnic.

Behind the Watsons came the Caverses and the Motherwells.

"Let's ask Libby Anne to ride with us," said Tommy, but Mary, with fine tact, pointed out that she would see the bottles, and it might hurt her feelings, "for, mind you," said Mary, "she knows, young and all as she is."

Mary was one year younger herself.

Along every trail that led into the little town came buggies and waggons, their occupants in the highest good humour. There was a laughing ripple in the meadowlark's song, as if he were declaring that he knew all the time that the rain was only a joke.

Across the river lay the Horsehoe slough, a crescent of glistening silver, over which wild ducks circled and skimmed and then sank into its clear waters, splashing riotously, as if they, too, were holding an "Old Boys' Reunion." It was the close season for wild fowl, and nobody knew it better than they.

Coming down into the valley, innumerable horses, unhitched and tied to the wagons, were to be seen. The rain had driven away the mosquitoes, and a cool breeze, perfumed with wild roses and cowslips, came gently from the West. The Watsons drove to a clump of poplar trees which seemed to offer shade for the horses. Bugsey and Tommy carried the box of bottles to the drug-store, admonished by Pearl to drive a close bargain.

Pearl went with Jimmy and Patsey, who took the green vegetables to the hotel. Jimmy had been accustomed to bringing milk to the back door and was quite an admirer of Mr. Braden, the genial proprietor.

Mr. Braden himself came into the kitchen just as they knocked at the door. He was faultlessly dressed, and in a particularly happy mood, for the first of July was one of his richest harvests, both in the dining-room and in the bar, where many a dollar would be laid on the altar of "auld lang syne"; and besides this, Sandy Braden was really glad to see all the old timers, apart from any thought of making money. He paid Jimmy for the vegetables, and gave him an extra quarter for a treat for himself and the others.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Pearl said: "Mr. Braden, you know Bill Cavers, don't you?"

Mr. Braden said he did.

"Well," said Pearl, "they've all come to town to-day. Mrs. Cavers hasn't been here for ever so long, but Bill promised to stay sober to-day if she'd come."

Pearl hesitated.

"Well, what else?" he said.

"They're goin' to have a photo taken to send home to her folks in Ontario. Mrs. Cavers is all fixed up, with her hair curled, and Libby Anne has a new dress made out of her mother's weddin' one, and Bill is lookin' fine—he hasn't been drunk since that Sunday you took him away from the school when we were havin' church."

Mr. Braden suddenly stopped smiling.

"And what I want to ask you, Mr. Braden, as a real favour, is not to fill Bill up until they get the photo taken, anyway. You know how his lip hangs when' he's drunk—he wouldn't look nice in a photo to send home. Mrs. Cavers went all white and twitchy that day you took him away from church. I was right behind her, and I guess that's how she'd look in a photo if he got drunk, and she wouldn't look nice, either; and even Libby Anne wouldn't be lookin' her best, because she gets mad when her father is drunk, and says she'd like to kill you, and burn up all your whiskey, and lots of things like that that ain't real Christian. So you see, it would spoil the whole picture if you let him get drunk."

Sandy Braden was not a hard-hearted man, and so, when Pearl told him all this with her eyes on him straight and honest and fearless, he was distinctly uncomfortable.

He tried to get a grip on himself. "Who told you to come to me about it?" he asked suspiciously.

"Nobody told me," Pearl said. "I never thought of it myself until I saw you lookin' so fine and such fine clothes on you, and you so full of good humour, and I thought maybe you're not as bad as I always thought you were, and maybe you don't know what a bad time Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne have when Bill drinks.

"You see," Pearl continued, after she had waited in vain for him to speak, "you've got all Bill had anyway. You mind the money they saved to go home—you got that, I guess, didn't you? And you'll not be losin' anything to-day, for Bill hasn't got it. He gave all the money he had to Mrs. Cavers—he was afraid he'd spend it—and that's what they're goin' to get the photo with."

Sandy Braden continued to look at the floor, and seemed to be unconscious of her presence.

"That's all I was wantin' to say," Pearl said at last. He looked up then, and Pearl was struck with the queer white look in his face.

"All right, Pearl," he said. "I promise you Bill won't get a drop here to-day." He tried to smile. "I hope the photo will turn out well."

"Thank you, Mr. Braden," Pearl said. "Good-bye."

Sandy Braden went back to the bar-room and told his bartender not to sell to Bill Cavers under any consideration. The bartender, who owned a share the business, became suspicious at once.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Because I don't want Bill Cavers to get drunk, that's all," he said shortly.

"Out with it, Sandy. Who's been at you? the W. C. T. U. been interviewing you?"

"That's none of your business Bob. If I choose to shut down on Bill Cavers it's nobody's business, is it?"

"Well, now, I guess it's some of my business," the bartender said. "Don't forget that I have a little interest in this part of the joint; and besides, you know my principles. I'll sell to any one who has the money—we're out for the coin, and we're not runnin' any Band of Hope."

"Now, see here, Bob, this man Cavers drinks up every cent he earns, and to-day I happen to know that he is trying to keep straight. They've come in to get a photo taken, and she hasn't been off the farm for years."

The bartender laughed.

"Bill will take a hot photo when he gets about two finger-lengths in him! No, it's not our business who buys. We're here to sell. That's one thing I don't believe in, is refusin' liquor to any man. Every man has a perfect right to as much liquor as he wants."

Sandy Braden was about to make a spirited reply, but some one called him in the office and in the excitement of the day's events he forgot all about Bill Cavers until his attention was called toward him later in the day.

* * *

Meanwhile the boys had disposed of their bottles to the drug-store, receiving in payment a bountiful supply of gum, licorice, and drug-store candies, and a Union Jack for each one. There was quite a run on bottles before an hour, for the Hogan twins cornered the market by slipping around to the alley at the back of the store and securing the bottles that stood in a box in the back shed. Then they came around to the front and sold them again, flags being the consideration every time, for the twins were loyal sons of the Dominion.

The drug-store man had bought his own bottles twice before he found out, but it is a proof of the twins' ability as financiers that they did not come back after he found it out. Lots of silly little boys would, but there is an advantage in being twins!

Down below the town, on the river-flat, the old timers were getting together. Under a grove of tall elms a group of the older men were recounting the stirring scenes of the boom days, when flour was ten dollars a bag, and sugar twenty-five cents a pound; and the big flood of '82, when the Souris, the peaceful little murmuring stream that now glinted through the trees below them, ran full from bank to bank and every house in Millford had a raft tied to its back door.

In the picnic grounds, which had been cleared out for this purpose years before, the women, faded and worn, most of them, with many long years on the prairie, but wonderfully brightened up by meeting old friends, spread their table-covers on the long, rough tables, and brought out the contents of their baskets.

Mrs. Watson introduced her sister-in-law to all the old friends, who at once received her into the sisterhood, and in a few minutes Aunt Kate was exchanging opinions on lemon pies with the best of them.

Then, speaking of pies, some one recalled Grandma Lowry's vinegar pies-that triumph of housewifely art, whereby a pie is made without eggs or milk or fruit, and still is a "pie!"

"Wasn't she a wonder? Did you ever see the beat of old Grandma Lowry?" they asked each other, looking up the hillside where they had laid her the year before, and hushing their voices reverently as if they were afraid that they might disturb her slumbers.

"I brought some of the vinegar pies to-day," Mrs. Slater said. "I thought it would be nice to remember her that way. She brought me over two of them the first Christmas we were in the country. I never will forget Grandma Lowry."

A little old woman in black stopped cutting the cake suddenly and looked up. Then she began to speak in a slow, monotonous voice. "She came to me," she said, "when my three boys were down with diphtheria in the dead of winter, and sat with my little Charlie the last night he was on earth. I says to her: 'Lie down, Mrs. Lowry'—she'd been up two nights already—but she says—I'll never forget just the way she said it—she says: 'Mary, I helped little Charlie to come into the world, and if it so be that he's goin' to leave it, who's got a better right than me to' be with him?'"

The shade of the elm-trees was getting smaller and smaller as the sun rose higher, and some of the old-timers were sitting in the sun before they noticed it, so interested were they in Mr. Slater's story of the surveying party that crossed the Assiniboine that fateful night in November, '79, when only five out of the eight got over.

Then the women announced, by beating on a dishpan, that dinner was ready, and every tree and bush gave answer—it was the old miracle of Roderick Dhu's men rising from copse and heath and cairn. Gray-haired men came running like boys, catching at each other's coat-tails, tripping each other, laughing, care-free, for it was Pioneers' Picnic day, and that is the one day when gladness and good-fellowship have full play, and cares and years with their bitter memories of hail and frost fall from them like a garment. Hungry little boys fell down out of trees, asking where was the pie! Little girls in fluffy skirts stood shyly around until some motherly soul ushered them down the line where she said there was plenty of room and lots of good eating.

Demure young ladies, assisted by young fellows in white aprons, poured tea and coffee from huge white pitchers, making frequent journeys to the stove over among the trees, and sometimes forgetting to come back until some one had to go for them!

There were roast chicken and boiled ham set in beds of crispest lettuce and parsley. There were moulds of chicken jelly with sprigs of young celery stuck in the top. There were infinite varieties of salads and jellies and pickles; there were platters full of strawberry tarts, made from last year's wild strawberries, which had been kept for this very occasion; there were apple pies covered with a thick mat of scalded cream. There was Mrs. Motherwell's half-hour cake, which tradition said had to be beaten for that length of time "all the one way"; there were layer cake, fig cake, rolled jelly cake, election cake, cookies with a hole, cookies with a raisin instead of a hole; there were dough nuts, Spanish bun and ginger-bread. No wonder that every one ate until they were able to eat no more.

Pearl helped to wait on the others. Danny did not say a word, but just laid about him. At last he called Pearl to him, and, in a muffled whisper, asked: "What is there now that I haven't had?" Pearl then knew that he was approaching the high-water mark.

* * *

Having overruled Martha's objections to mingling with her fellow-men at picnics, and having persuaded her to come and see for herself if picnics were not a good thing, Pearl felt responsible for her enjoyment of it.

Pearl had some anxious thoughts on the subject of a proper dress for Martha for the picnic, when she found that her best summer dress was a black muslin, which to Pearl seemed fit only for a funeral.

She wondered how to bring forward the subject without appearing rude, when Martha saved her from all further anxiety one day by coming over to ask her to help her to pick out a dress from the samples she had sent for. The magazine had begun to bear fruit.

They decided on a white muslin with a navy blue silk dot in it, and then Pearl suggested a blue ribbon girdle with long ends, a hat like Camilla's, a blue silk parasol, and long blue silk gloves.

When Pearl saw Martha the day of the picnic, it just seemed too good to be true that Martha could look so nice. She had braided her hair the night before and made it all fluffy and wavy, and under the broad brim of her blue hat it didn't look the colour of last year's hay at all, Pearl thought. Martha herself seemed to feel less constrained and awkward than she ever did before. Mrs. Francis would have called it the "leaven of good clothes."

Pearl was wondering what she was going to do with Martha, now that she had got her there, when she saw Arthur Wemyss, the young Englishman.

She took him aside and said: "Arthur, you are the very fellow I want to see. I've got Martha Perkins with me to-day, and she's pretty shy, you know—never been to any of these picnics before—and I'm so busy looking after all our young lads that I haven't time to go around with her. Now, I wonder if you would take her around and be nice to her. Martha's just a fine girl and young, too, if she only knew it, and she should be having a good time at picnics."

Arthur expressed his willingness to be useful. He would be glad, he said, to do his best to give Miss Martha a pleasant time.

And so it came about that Arthur, in his courteous way, escorted Martha through the throng of picnickers, found a seat for her at the table, and waited on her with that deference that seems to come so easy to the well-bred young Englishman.

Arthur was an open-hearted young fellow, and finding Martha very sympathetic, told her about his plans. Thursa was coming from England in December to marry him, and he was going to have a house put up just as soon as the harvest was over. His father had sent him the money, and so he was not depending entirely on the harvest. He showed her the plan of the house and consulted her on the best position for the cellar door and the best sort of cistern. He showed her a new photo of Thursa that he had just received. She was a fluffy-haired little thing in a much befrilled dress, holding a fan coquettishly behind her head. Martha noticed how fondly he looked at it, and for a moment a shivering sense of disappointment smote her heart. But she resolutely put it from her and feasted her eyes on the lovelight in his, even though she knew it was the face of another woman that had kindled it.

Arthur was a wholesome-looking young man, with a beaming face of unaffected good-humour, and to Martha it seemed the greatest happiness just to be near him and hear his voice. She tried to forget everything save that he was here beside her, for this one dear sweet afternoon.

When the thought of Thursa's coming would intrude on her, or the bitterer thought still that she was only a plain, sunburnt, country girl, with rough hands and uncouth ways, she forced them away from her, even as you and I lie down again, and try to gather up the ravelled threads of a sweet dream, knowing well that it is only a dream and that waking time is drawing near, but holding it close to our hearts as long as we can.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE LACROSSE MATCH

What's come of old Bill Lindsay and the Saxhorn fellers, say? I want to hear the old band play.

——James Whitcomb Riley.

THE great event of the Pioneers' Picnic was the lacrosse match between Millford and Hillsboro. It was held at three o'clock in the afternoon, and everybody was there.

The Millford lacrosse boys were in serious financial difficulty— "everything gone but their honour," as one sentimental member had put it, and if the columns of the Hillsboro Gazette were to be trusted, that was gone, too. But in the big game on this occasion they hoped to retrieve their fallen fortunes.

Everybody felt that the real business of the day had begun when the two lacrosse teams drew up on the field. The women had finished their clearing up after dinner, and piled rhubarb leaves on their baskets to keep the eatables cool for supper.

Bud Perkins and Teddy Watson were playing for Millford, and Mrs. Perkins, Mrs. Watson, and Aunt Kate were in a pleasurable state of excitement, though they told the other women over and over that lacrosse was a dangerous game, and they did not want the boys to play. Mrs. Breen, too, whose son Billy was Millford's trusty forward, experienced a thrill of motherly pride when she heard the crowd breaking into cheers as the Millford boys in their orange and black jerseys lined up on the field.

Pearl had gathered up her four brothers after dinner and washed them clean at the river, also made repairs on their drooping stockings and twisted collars, and, holding tight to Danny, marshalled them across the end of the field to where Arthur and Martha sat with Jim and Camilla, and Tom Motherwell and Nellie Slater.

Dr. Clay came driving around the end of the field. When he saw Pearl he stopped and asked her if she would come and sit in his buggy to watch the game.

"I can't leave the boys, thank you, doctor," she said; "there's been three of them lost since noon, and they've all got their good clothes on."

"Well, of course, we'll have to keep track of them, in that case," he said, smiling, "because it would be a real loss to lose them, clothes and all. I tell you what we'll do, Pearl. I'll give you the horse and buggy—pile them all in, and it will be the easiest way of minding them."

The doctor drove to a clear space where the boys would have a good view of the game, and then went away to get a bag of peanuts for them.

In the centre of the field the referee placed the ball between Bud Perkins's stick and McLaren's, of Hillsboro. There was a moment of intense excitement and then away went the ball toward Hillsboro's goal, half a dozen in pursuit. The whole field was alive with black and orange, blue and white, legs and arms and sticks darting in and out in a way that would make your eyes ache to follow them. Once the ball came to the side, causing a receding wave of fluttering muslin. Mrs. Maxwell, whose son had that shade of hair which is supposed to indicate a hasty temper, was shouting directions to him as loudly as she could. Mrs. Maxwell's directions were good ones, too, if Alec could only have followed them. "Shoot, Alec!" she called. "Shoot it in! Run, Alec! Shoot it in!"

Millford's only lawyer, the dignified and stately Mr. Hawkins, came majestically down the line, carrying a camp stool under his arm. He had found it necessary to change his position, incensed at the undignified behaviour of the Hillsboro girls, who had taken up their position on one side of the field and were taking a lively interest in the game. He had ventured a slight rebuke, whereupon the whole battery of their indignation had been trained on him, with the result that he withdrew hastily. He sat down just in front of Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Watson, and began to take an interest in the game. The ball was near Millford's goal and a scrimmage was taking place, a solid knot of players that moved and writhed and twisted.

Suddenly Bud Perkins shot out from the others, carrying his stick high above his head as he, raced up the field. "Bud! Bud! Bud!" Millford cried in an ecstasy of hope and fear. He sprang, dodged, whirled, the whole field in pursuit, and then, when in line with Hillsboro's goal, he shot low and swift and sure!

A great cheer burst from the crowd, hats were thrown in the air, little boys turned handsprings, and Millford went stark, staring mad.

Mrs. Perkins was not naturally an excitable woman, and she looked the very soul of meekness in her respectable black dress and little black bonnet tied tightly under her chin, but if your only boy—the only living out of three—your boy that had been real delicate and hard to raise—if he had dodged the whole field and shot a goal, straight as a die, and the whole town were cheering for him, mad with joy, you might have been roused a bit, too. When Mrs. Perkins came to herself she was pounding her parasol on the broad, dignified shoulders of Millford's most stately citizen, Mr. E. Cuthbert Hawkins, who moved away rather haughtily.

Over near the lemonade booth, Bud's father was explaining to an interested group just how Bud came to be such a smart boy.

"Young Bud has never worked the way his dad did," he said. "I ain't like some men that rob the cradle for farm hands and puts little lads building roads when they are so small they have to be weighted down with stones in their pockets to keep them from blowin' away. Young Bud has run in the pasture all his life, you may say, and it would be queer if he hadn't some speed in him. He comes of pretty good stock, let me tell you, registered in every strain, if I do say it. Look at that for a well-rounded leg!" Mr. Perkins made it easy for every one to do so. "Eighteen inches around the calf, and tapered to the toe!" He patted it lovingly. "I tell you, there was action there a few years ago!"

Meanwhile the play went on faster than ever. Hillsboro scored a goal through the Millford goal-keeper's stick breaking, and the score stood one to one until within fifteen minutes of the time. The Millford boys were plainly nervous. Victory meant the district championship, and confusion to their enemies.

The game was close and hard—no long throws—every inch contested—it had ceased to be a game, it was a battle! One minute the ball went close to Millford's goal and Mrs. Watson and Mrs. Perkins clutched each other's hands in wordless dread; but the wiry form of Teddy Watson shot up in the air and the ball bounced back into the Millford captain's stick. As he ran along the edge of the crowd with it, one of the Hillsboro girls slashed at him viciously with her red parasol. The captain passed the ball safely to Alec Maxwell, whose red hair made him a shining mark for the Hillsboro girls. But Sandy was not a bit disconcerted by their remarks. Big Dave Hunter, his check, was after him. Big Dave was a powerfully built fellow with a chest like a Clyde and a cheerful expanse of freckles. As Alec Maxwell threw the ball to Bud Perkins, Big Dave's long reach intercepted it, and then he made one of those grand rushes for which he was known and dreaded by his opponents, and which are still remembered by the old boys who played the game. This time Dave's good old trick miscarried, for Teddy Watson, slender as he was, neatly body-checked him—the ball fell from his stick into that of Alec Maxwell, who, boring his way through the Hillsboro defence, shot on goal and scored.

The home crowd went wild with cheers, for time was up, and the score stood two to one in Millford's favour. Thomas Perkins was hilarious. "Come on, John!" he said to John Watson, "let's have a little Schlitz. I never take anything stronger now, since the boy grew up. What! You don't drink Schlitz? It's harmless as hay-tea, but perhaps you're right."



CHAPTER XIX

THE END OF THE GAME

Oh, Thou who hast lighted the sun, Oh, Thou who hast darkened the tare, Judge Thou The sin of the Stone that was hurled By the Goat from the light of the sun As she sinks in 'the mire of the tarn.

——Kipling.

WHEN Pearl got her four lively young charges settled down she had time to look about her. Up and down the line of spectators her eye searched for Libby Anne and Mrs. Cavers, but they were nowhere to be seen, and Pearl became more and more troubled.

"I'd like fine to see that faded old raincoat of hers," she said to herself, "and Lib's little muslin hat"; but every raincoat that Pearl saw was new and fresh, and every muslin hat had a bright and happy little face under it, instead of Libby Anne's pale cheeks and sad, big eyes.

Dr. Clay came over with a bag of popcorn for them, and Pearl told him the cause of her worry.

"They had their dinner all right," she said in a low voice to the doctor, as he leaned over the wheel. "Bill was fine, and do you know, he is real nice when he's sober? I waited on them, and Mrs. Cavers seemed so happy; it pretty near made my heart stop beatin' every time I thought of it, and how nice it would be if he'd keep straight. Libby Anne had two licorice kittens and a package of gum saved up in a bag; she said she wouldn't eat them to-day, for she was havin' a good enough time when she could see her mother enjoyin' herself so well. Lib is only ten years old, but she knows as much as some grown-up people. The last I saw of them they were going up to Mrs. Burrell's to fix up a little before they had the photo taken. I think I'll go and see about them, Doctor; I can't enjoy myself for wonderin' if they're all right.

"I'll go with you," the doctor said, calling Jimmy Watson to come and hold the horse and look after the boys.

Down the almost deserted street the doctor and Pearl went, looking for any member of the Cavers family. Flags hung motionless in the bright sunshine. The trees that formed the arch over the road were beginning to droop in the heat of the afternoon.

The photographer's tent was the first place they went to. A young lady and gentleman were posing for a photo, the young lady all gone to blushes and the young man very gorgeous in tan boots and a red tie.

Pearl did the talking.

"Did you take a photo of Mr. and Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne?"

"What are they like?" the photographer asked.

"She is a little woman, pale and tried-looking; looks as if she sat up a lot at night," Pearl answered.

"I know who you mean, then," he said. "She has been up here with her little girl looking for some one, but I do not know where she went from here."

Pearl's heart sank. "He's broke his word!" she said angrily, when they were on the street. "He promised me he would not give Bill any liquor until he got his picture taken, anyway." Pearl's eyes were throwing off rings of fire.

"Who promised?" the doctor asked.

"Sandy Braden. I told him all about the photos when we went there this morning with the onions and other stuff, and he seemed real nice about it; but it doesn't look as if he meant it."

"I don't know, Pearl. Sandy Braden is not a bad fellow. He wouldn't go back on his word. I'm sure of that. You go up to Mrs. Burrell's and I'll go down to the hotel and see if, they know anything about Bill."

The bar-room was full. Even the lacrosse game was not a strong enough attraction to draw away all the crowd; the products of Walker and Seagram still held their own.

Bob Steele, the bartender, was telling about Bill Cavers going to have his photo taken.

"They got around Sandy easy," he was saying; "but that's one thing I won't let any one interfere with. As long as I've been selling liquor I've never refused to sell to any man. I refuse no one. Every man has a perfect right to whatever he wants to eat or drink—I claim that for myself, and I hold that no one has a right to interfere with another man's liberty."

The crowd in the bar-room gave maudlin approval.

"And so you just bet Bill Cavers got all he wanted. He came in here soon after dinner, and the first man that asked him to drink got turned down. Think of Bill Cavers refusin' good liquor! But when he heard it bubblin' in the glass his knee just wobbled—that's the beauty of sellin' our goods, it advertises itself, and works nights and Sundays. I says: 'What'll you have, Bill?' and he said—Bill's an honest fellow—he said: 'I've no money, Bob.' But I says: 'That makes no difference, your credit is good here—you've always paid—and so name yer drink, Bill,' and I poured out a glass of Three Swallows; and you bet by the time Bill was ready to quit he would sure look well in a picture. I was takin' a risk of losin' money, too. Bill's honest enough, but there's a strong chance that there'll be judgment against his stuff this fall. But I've always said a man has a right to all the liquor he wants, and I'm prepared to stand by it even if I drop money on it. It may be foolish"—looking around for applause, but his audience were not in the mental condition to discuss fine ethical points—"but I'm prepared to do it."

Dr. Clay, standing on the outer edge of the crowd, heard all this. He made his way to the bar. "Where is Bill Cavers, now?" he asked.

The gleam in the doctor's eyes should have warned the bartender to be discreet in his answers. "Well, I can't just say," he answered with mock politeness, resenting the tone of the doctor's question. "He didn't leave word with me, but I guess he's getting his photo taken."

"Did you set him drunk and then turn him out in this blazing sun?" the doctor asked, in a voice so tense with anger that the audience, befuddled as they were, drew closer to see what it was all about.

"We never keep people longer than is necessary," the bartender said, with an evil smile, "and besides, Bill was due at the photographer's."

Before the doctor knew what he was doing his right arm flew out and landed a smashing blow on the bartender's smirking face, a blow that sent him crashing into the bottles behind him. He recovered in an instant, and the doctor's quick eye caught the flash of a knife in his hand as he came over the bar at him. With a swift blow the doctor knocked the knife from his hand, and, grasping him by the coat collar, he dragged him to the back door, and then, raising him on the toe of his boot, landed him in the middle of the mud-puddle that had been left by the morning's rain.

The bartender was just gathering himself up when Sandy Braden drove up to the stable door with his pacer.

Meanwhile Pearl had continued the search for Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne. She was on her way to Mrs. Burrell's when she caught sight of something like a parasol down in the trees where the horses were tied. She ran down to the picnic grounds hastily, and there, in a grassy hollow, shaded by a big elm, she found the objects of her search.

Bill Cavers, with purple face and wide open mouth, lay breathing heavily. Libby Anne was fanning him with her muslin hat, and Mrs. Cavers was tenderly bathing his swollen face with water Libby Anne had brought from the river. Her own eyes were red with crying and hopeless with defeat.

"We've just found him, Pearl," she said. "He's been here in the hot sun I don't know how long. I never saw him breathing so queer before."

"I'll get the doctor," said Pearl.

She ran back up the road and found the doctor talking to Sandy Braden, at the stable behind the hotel.

"Come on, Doctor!" Pearl cried breathlessly. "I found them. You come, too"—to, Mr. Braden—"it will take you both to carry him."

Sandy Braden hesitated, but there was something in Pearl's compelling eyes that made him follow her.

They reached the grassy slope. Mrs. Cavers had made a pillow of her coat for his head, and was still bathing his face. The doctor hastily loosened the drunken man's clothing and listened to the beating of his heart. Its irregular pounding was unmistakable, it was making its last great fight.

Dr. Clay took out his hypodermic syringe and made an injection in Bill's arm. Bill stirred uneasily. "I don't—want—it—Bob," he said thickly. "I promised—the—missus. She's—with me—to-day."

Sandy Braden endeavoured to quiet Mrs. Cavers's fears.

"It's the heat, Mrs. Cavers," he said; "but it'll soon wear off—he'll be all right soon, won't he, Doc?"

The doctor made no reply, but listened again to the sick man's heart. It was failing.

Mrs. Cavers, looking up, read the doctor's face.

She fell on the ground beside her husband, calling him every tender name as she rained kisses on his livid cheeks, uttering queer little cries like a wounded animal, but begging him always to live for her sake, and crying out bitterly that she could not give him up.

Sandy Braden, who had often seen men paralyzed with liquor, gently tried to take her away, assuring, her again that he would be all right soon. She noticed then for the first time who it was who had come with the doctor, and shaking off his hand, she sprang up and faced him, with blazing eyes that scorched into his very soul.

Sandy Braden put up his hand as if to ward off her fury.

Bill moved his lips, and she knelt beside him once more, her thin gray hair falling over her shoulders. The sick man gazed into her face, and a look of understanding came into his bloodshot eyes.

"Ellie," he said with great effort, "I—did—not—want—it—at first," and with his eyes still looking into hers, as if mutely pleading with her to understand, the light faded from them ... and the last long, staggering breath went out. Then fell silence ... that never-ending silence ... and quite perceptibly the colour went in patches from his face. Dr. Clay gently touched Mrs. Cavers's arm. "Yes, Doctor, I know ... he's dead." She talked like people do in their sleep.

"I did my best, Will," she said, as she smoothed his thick black hair. "I tried my hardest to save you, and I always thought I would win ... but they've beat me, Will. They were too strong for me ... and I'm sorry!" She bent down and tenderly kissed his forehead, damp now with the dews of death.

There was not a leaf stirring on the trees. Every bird in the valley was still. Only the gentle lapping of the Souris over the fallen tree in the current below them came to their ears.

Sandy Braden's face was as white as his shirt-bosom as he stood looking at Bill's quiet face.

A cheer from the lacrosse grounds came like a voice from another world; the world of life and pleasure and action.

Mrs. Cavers, roused at the sound, stood up and addressed the hotel-keeper.

"Excuse me, Mr. Braden," she said, "I was almost forgetting. Mr. Cavers, I know had not enough with him to pay for ... all this." She motioned toward Bill's dead face. "This ... must have cost a lot." She handed him some silver. "It is all I have with me to-day ... I hope it is enough. I know Mr. Cavers would not like to leave a debt ... like this."

Mechanically Sandy Braden took the money, then dropping it as if it burned him, he turned away and went slowly up the road that he had come, reeling unsteadily. A three-seated democrat, filled with drunken men, was just driving away from his stable. They were a crowd from Howard, who had been drinking heavily at his bar all the afternoon. They drove away,—madly lashing their horses into a gallop.

Sandy Braden hid in a clump of poplars until they got past him. Looking back toward the river he could see Mrs. Cavers kneeling beside her husband, and even at that distance he fancied he could see Bill's dead face looking into hers, and begging her to understand. Just as the democrat passed pants burst into maudlin song:

"Who's the best man in this town? Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden. Who's the best man in this town? Sandy Braden, Sandy Braden."

And then it was that Sandy Braden fell prone upon the ground and buried his face in the cool, green grass, crying: "God be merciful to me, a sinner!"

* * *

When the victorious lacrosse team came down the street, they were followed by a madly cheering throng. They went straight to the hotel, where, by the courtesy of the proprietor, they had always been given rooms in which to dress.

Bob Steele met them at the office door, all smiles and congratulations, in spite of a badly blackened eye.

"Come on in, boys!" he called. "It's my treat. Walk right in."

Most of the boys needed no second invitation. Bud Perkins hesitated. His father was just behind him. "Take a little Schlitz, Buddie. That won't hurt you," he said.

Bud went in with the others. Every one was in the gayest humour. The bartender called in the porter to help him to serve the crowd. The glasses were being filled when a sudden hush fell on the bar-room, for Sandy Braden, with a face as ghastly as the one he had just left on the river-bank, came in the back door.

He raised his hand with a gesture of authority. "Don't drink it, boys!" he said. "It has killed one man to-day. Don't touch it."

Even the bartender turned pale, and there was a moment of intense silence. Just then some one rushed in and shouted the news of Bill Cavers's death. The crowd fell away until Sandy Braden and the bartender were left face to face.

"How much have you in the business here, Bob?" he asked in a perfectly controlled voice.

The bartender told him.

He took a cheque-book from his pocket and hastily made out a cheque.

"Now, go," he said, as he gave it to him. "I will not be needing a man in here any more."

He took the keys from his pocket and locked the back door. Then coming out into the office, where there were a few stragglers lounging in the chairs, he carefully locked the door leading into the bar.

"I'm done, boys," he said shortly. "I've quit the business."



CHAPTER XX

ON THE QUIET HILLSIDE

They shall go out no more, oh ye, Who speak earth's farewell thro' your tears, Who see your cherished ones go forth And come not back, thro' weary years. There is a place-there is a shore From which they shall go out no more.

——Kate Tucker Goode.

WHEN sympathetic neighbours came to stay with Mrs. Cavers that night, and "sit up" with the dead man, she gently refused their kind offer. "It is kind of you, dear friends," she said, "but I would rather stay alone to-night. It is the last thing I can do for him, and I shall not be lonely. I've sat here plenty of nights waiting for him, not knowing how he would come home—often afraid he would be frozen to death or kicked by the horses—but to-night he is safe from all that, and I am not worrying about him at all. I've got him all to myself, now, and I want to sit here with him, just him and me. Take Libby Anne with you, Martha. I am thinking of a sweet verse that seems to suit me now: 'They shall go out no more.' That's my comfort now; he is safe from so many things."

The next day was the funeral, a cloudless day of glittering sunshine and bright blue sky. The neighbours came for miles; for Bill's death and the closing of the bar had made a profound impression.

"I wonder will Sandy Braden come," Thomas Perkins said, as he tied his horse to a seeder in the yard. "Bill was a good customer of his, and I wouldn't be surprised if Sandy came."

"You're a good guesser, Thomas," another man said, "for here he comes."

"Sandy'll open up again, I think," said George Steadman, "in a few days, when he gets over this a little. He's foolish if he doesn't, with the busy time just startin', and money beginnin' to move."

"Well, I don't know," said Sam Motherwell. "From what I hear, Sandy says he's got his medicine, and won't take chances on getting any more. It'll be a good thing for the town if he has closed for keeps. Sandy has made thousands of dollars over his bar."

"Well," George Steadman said; in his most generous tone, "I don't begrudge it to him. Sandy's a decent fellow, and he certainly never made it out of me or mine. He's a fool if he closes up now, but if he does, some one else will open up. I believe a bar is a help to the town all right!"

"It hasn't been much of a help here," Thomas Perkins said, waving his hand at the untidy barnyard.

"Oh, well, this is an exception. There's always some man like Bill that don't know when to quit. This business here is pretty rough on me, though," Mr. Steadman said, in a truly grieved tone; "losin' my tenant just before harvest; but I blame nobody but Bill himself. He hasn't used me square, you all know that."

"Stop, George, stop!" The broad Scotch of Roderick Ray's voice had not been heard before in the conversation. "Hoo hae we used Bill? He was aye fond o' it an' aye drank it to his hurt an' couldna stop. What hae we done to help him? Dye think it fair to leave a trap-door open for a child to fall doon? An' if ye found him greetin' at the bottom, wad ye no tak him up an' shut the door? Puir Bill, we found him greetin' an' bruised an' sore mony times, but nane o' us had the humanity to try to shut the door until he fell once too often, an' could rise na more, an' now Sandy himsel' has shamed us a', an' I tell ye, he'll no open it again, for he has better bluid in him nor that; and our sins will lie upon our own heads if we ever let yon death-trap be opened again!"

Just then Sandy Braden, wearing a black suit, drove into the yard and tied up his horse.

* * *

The little house was filled to overflowing with women; the men stood bareheaded around the door. Mrs. Cavers sat beside the coffin with an arm around Libby Anne. Mrs. Steadman, with the cerise roses still nodding in her hat, said on the way home that it did seem queer to her that Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne did not shed a tear. Mrs. Steadman did not understand that there is a limit even to tears and that Libby Anne in her short years had seen sadder sights than even this.

The Reverend John Burrell conducted the funeral.

"Shall we gather at the river?" he gave out as the first hymn. Some sang it falteringly; they had their own ideas of Bill's chances in the next world, and did not consider the "river" just the proper figure of speech to describe it.

The minister then read that old story of the poor man who went down to Jericho and fell among thieves. Mr. Burrell's long experience with men had made him a plain and pointed speaker, and given him that rare gift, convincing earnestness. Now he laid his hand on the coffin and spoke in a clear, ringing voice, that carried easily to every person in the house and to those who stood around the door.

"Here is a man who is a victim of our laws," he said, in beginning. "This is not an exceptional case. Men are being ruthlessly murdered every day from the same cause; this is not the only home that it has darkened. It is going on all over this land and all the time because we are willing, for the sake of a few dollars' revenue, to allow one man to grow rich on the failings of others. We know the consequences of this; we know that men will be killed, body and soul, that women will go broken-hearted, that little children will be cheated of their childhood. This scene to-day—the dead man in his coffin, the sad-faced wife and child, the open grave on the hillside—is a part of the Traffic. They belong to the business just as much as the sparkling decanters and the sign above the door. Every one of you, no doubt, has foretold this day. I wonder have you done anything to prevent it? Let none of us presume to judge the brother who has gone. I would rather take my chances before the judgment-seat of God with him, the victim, who has paid for his folly with his life, than with any one of you who have made this thing possible. 'Ye who are strong ought to bear the infirmity of the weak.' I do not know how it will be with this man when he comes to give an account of himself to God, but I do know that God is a loving, tender Father, who deals justly and loves mercy, and in that thought to-day we rest and hope. Let us pray."

"Impress this scene on our heart, to-day, dear Lord," he prayed; "this man cut down in his prime; this woman old with sorrow, not with years; this child, cheated of her father's love. Let us ask ourselves how long will we sit idly by, not caring. And oh, God, we pray Thee to bless the one man who, among us all, has said that as far as he is responsible this traffic shall cease; bless him abundantly, and may his troubled heart find peace. May he never forget that there is a fountain where all sin and uncleanness may be washed away. Remind our hearts this day of how He died to save us from the sins of selfishness and greed, and ever lives to cheer and guide us. Let us hear the call that comes to us to-day to do a man's part in protecting the weak, the helpless, and the young. Let the love of this woman for her husband call to our remembrance Thy unchanging love for us, and if it be in keeping with Thy divine laws, may the precious coin of her unfaltering devotion purchase for him a holding in the heavenly country. For the sake of Thy dear Son we ask it."

The funeral went slowly along the well-beaten road that skirts the sand-hills of the Assiniboine, and crawled like a long black snake through the winding valley of Oak Creek, whose banks were hanging with wild roses and columbine, while down in the shady aisles of the creek bed, under the stunted oak that gives it its name, pink and yellow lady's slippers gave out their honeyed fragrance.

"It is hard to die and leave all this behind," Thomas Perkins said; looking down the valley, where the breezes rippled the leaves. "I always think it must be hard to snuff out in June or July and have to pass out without knowin' how the crop'll turn out; but I guess now, from what I've heard, when the clock strikes quittin'time, a fellow won't be worryin' about the crops."

On the quiet hill, dotted with spruce, that looks down on the Souris, they laid Bill Cavers away. Very gently the coffin was lowered into its sandy bed as the minister read the beautiful words of the burial service and the neighbours and friends stood silent in the presence, the majestic presence of Death. Just before the sand was filled in, Ellen Cavers, tearless still, kissed the roses she held in her hand and dropped them gently on the coffin.

One by one the neighbours walked away, untied their horses, and drove slowly down the hill, until Libby Anne and her mother were left alone. Bud and Martha were waiting at the gate for them. Mrs. Cavers, looking up, noticed that one man stood with bowed head near the gate. It was Sandy Braden, his face white and full of sadness.

Mrs. Cavers walked over to where he stood and held out her hand. "Mr. Braden," she said, looking at him with a glimmer of tears in her gentle eyes.

He took her hand, so cruelly seamed and workworn; his was white and plump and well-kept. He tried to speak, but no words came.

Looking up she read his face with a woman's quick understanding. "I know," she said.



CHAPTER XXI

FROZEN WHEAT

For them 'at's here in airliest infant stages, It's a hard world; For them 'at gets the knocks of boyhood's ages, It's a mean world; For them 'at nothin's good enough they're gittin', It's a bad world; For them 'at learns at last what's right and fittin', It's a good world.

——James Whitcomb Riley.

THE summer was over, and the harvest, a great, bountiful harvest, was gathered in. The industrious hum of the threshing-machine was heard from many quarters, and the roads were dotted thick with teams bringing in the grain to the elevators.

In the quiet field on the hillside, where the spruce trees, straight and stiff, stand like faithful sentinels, the grass that had grown over Bill Cavers's grave was now sere and gray; only the hardy pansies were green still and gay with blossoms, mute emblems of the love that never faileth.

Mrs. Cavers and Libby Anne were still living on the rented farm. After Bill's death the neighbours, with true Western generosity, had agreed among themselves to harvest the crop for her. The season had been so favourable that her share of the crop would be a considerable amount.

It was a typical autumn day in middle September. The golden and purple flowers of the fall bespangled the roadside—wild sunflowers, brown-centred gaillardia, wild sage, and goldenrod. The bright blue of the cloudless sky set off the rich tints of autumn. The stubble fields still bore the golden-yellow tinge of the harvest, and although the maple leaves were fast disappearing before the lusty winds of autumn, the poplars, yellow and rust-coloured, still flickered gaily, the wild rosehaws and frost-touched milkweed still gave a dash of colour to the shrubbery on the river-bank.

There had been an early frost that fall, which had caught the late wheat, and now the grain which was brought into the elevators had to be closely graded. The temptation to "plug" the wheat was strong, and so much of it was being done that the elevator men were suspicious of every one.

Young Tom Steadman was weighing wheat in the Farmers' Elevator while the busy time was on, and although there was no outward hostility between him and Bud Perkins, still his was too small a nature to forget the thrashing that Bud had given him at the school two years ago, and, according to Tom's code of ethics, it would be a very fine way to get even if he could catch Bud selling "plugged" wheat.

The first load that Bud brought in Tom asked him if he had plugged it. Bud replied quite hotly that he had not.

"I suppose," said Tom, "you stopped all that since you joined the Church."

Bud's face flushed, but he controlled his temper and answered: "Yes, that's what stopped me, and I'm not ashamed to say so."

The manager of the elevator, who was present, looked at him in surprise. "Were you ever caught?" he asked.

"No," said Bud; "I was not."

"Well, then, you're a fool to ever admit that you did it," he said severely.

"I can't help that," Bud said. "I am not going to lie about it."

"Well, it makes people suspicious of you to know you ever did it, that's all," Mr. Johnston said.

"You are welcome to watch me. I am not asking you to take my word for it," Bud replied.

"You're a queer lad," said the elevator man.

Bud's wheat was closely examined, and found to be of uniform quality.

The wheat went up to the dollar mark and Thomas Perkins decided to rush his in to the elevator at once. He stayed at home himself and filled the bags while Bud did the marketing.

All went well for a week. Contrary to his own words about being suspicious of Bud, the elevator "boss" was, in his own mind, confident of the boy's honesty.

One day, just as Bud's second last bag was thrown in, young Steadman gave a cry of delight, and picked out a handful. Number II Northern was the grading that Bud had been getting all the week. Young Steadman showed it triumphantly to the elevator "boss" who examined it closely. It was frozen wheat!

Bud was gathering up his bags when the elevator man called him over.

"Look at that," he said, holding the wheat before him.

Bud looked at it incredulously. "That's not mine," he said.

Young Steadman's eyes were on him exultingly. He had got even at last, he thought.

"We'll have to see about this, Bud," the elevator man said sternly.

The other bag was emptied, and Bud saw with his own eyes that the middle of the bag was filled with frozen wheat! He turned dizzy with shame and rage. The machinery in the elevator with its deafening, thump-thump-thump, seemed to be beating into his brain. He leaned against the wall, pale and trembling.

The same instinct which prompted Tom Steadman when he hit Libby Anne Cavers prompted him now. "I thought you said you wouldn't do such a thing since you joined the Church," he said, with an expression of shocked virtue.

Bud's cup of bitterness was overflowing, and at first he did not notice what had been said.

Tom took his silence to mean that he might with safety say more. "I guess you're not as honest as you'd like to have people think, and joinin' the Church didn't do you so much good after all."

Bud came to himself with a rush then, and young Tom Steadman went spinning across the floor with the blood spurting from his nose.

* * *

Bud was fined ten dollars for assault, and of course it became known in a few hours that the cause of the trouble was that Bud had been caught selling frozen wheat in the middle of his bags.

Through it all Bud made no word of defence. No one knew how bitter was the sting of disgrace in the boy's soul or how he suffered. When he went home that afternoon there was a stormy scene. "I told you I would not sell 'plugged' wheat," he said to his father, raging with the memory of it, "and, without letting me know, you put it in and made me out a thief and a liar."

The old man moistened his lips. "Say, Buddie," he said, "it was too bad you hit young Steadman; he's an overgrown slab of a boy, and I don't mind you lickin' him, but they'll take the 'law' on ye every time; and ten dollars was a terrible fine. Maybe they'd have let you off with five if you'd coaxed them."

"Coax!" said Bud, scornfully. "I wouldn't coax them. What do I care about the money, anyway? That's not what I'm kicking about."

"Oh, Buddie, you are a reckless young scamp to let ten dollars go in one snort, and then say you don't care."

With an angry exclamation Bud turned away.

* * *

The next time Bud went to Millford Mrs. Burrell saw him passing the house and called him in. She had heard an account of the affair from the wife of the elevator "boss," and had told it to Mr. Burrell, who promptly declared he did not believe it, whereupon Mrs. Burrell grew indignant. Did he doubt Mrs. Johnston's word?

Mr. Burrell cautioned her not to speak of it to any one, and went out at once to see Bud. Mr. Burrell had only been gone a few minutes when Bud himself came driving past the house. Mrs. Burrell told herself that Providence had put Bud in her way. Mrs. Burrell blamed Providence for many things quite unjustly. "Come in, Bud," she called from the door; "I want to see you."

Bud knew the minister's wife but slightly; he had seen her at the services in the schoolhouse. He had intended going in to see Mr. Burrell, for he felt that he must tell some one that he was not guilty, and he felt that the minister was the one whose opinion he most valued. So he went in gladly, hoping that Mr. Burrell might be there.

"Now, Bud," Mrs. Burrell began, with her severest air, "I am sorry to say what I have to say, but it's all for your own good, and it really hurts me to say it."

"Don't say it then!" burst from the boy's white lips; he was too sore to stand any more.

"I must say it, Bud," she went on, as conscientious in her cruelty as Queen Mary. "You have done very wrong, and you must repent. I could not sleep a wink last night, thinking of it, and Mr. Burrell did think so much of, you, too."

"Did think!" Bud inferred from the heavy emphasis that Mr. Burrell's regard was all past, and he hid his face so that she might not see how deeply she had hurt him.

"But you are young yet, and your life is all before you, and you must repent and begin all over again. 'While the lamp of life holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return.' You must pray for strength, so you won't be tempted to be dishonest again, and you really should apologize to young Mr. Steadman. Mrs. Johnston says his face is very sore."

Bud looked up quickly and said with flashing eyes: "I'm glad of that. I wish I had smashed him again—the pup!"

Then Mrs. Burrell was shocked utterly. "My dear boy," she said, "I am afraid your heart is very hard and wicked. Mr. Burrell thought you were soundly converted, too, but you seem to be really rebellious against God, who is kinder and better than any earthly parent. This is a matter for earnest and agonizing prayer."

Bud stood up and looked at her with eyes that flamed with anger. Unfortunately Bud, like Martha, was entirely lacking in humour; otherwise his heart would have been saved many a cruel hurt. "I don't want your prayers," he said, when he could control himself.

Something in the boy's face touched Mrs. Burrell's heart with pity. "Perhaps I've been wrong," she said. "I do make mistakes sometimes. I may have made one now."

"You certainly have," he said, as he took his hat and left the house.

Mrs. Burrell watched him going down the path with his long, swinging stride, and her heart was strangely troubled. She had a conviction that she had done no good, and perhaps had done a great deal of harm. "When I try to do good, evil comes of it," she said sorrowfully, and then she went to her own room and prayed; and it was an earnest and agonizing prayer, too; though very different from the prayer she had in mind when she spoke to Bud, for the burden of it all was this, that God would in some way overrule all her mistakes for good, and not let the boy suffer because of any word of hers.

She continued to plead until her heart found peace in the thought that has comforted so many of us in our sore need, that perhaps when He sees the faulty, crooked lines we are drawing, the Great Surveyor will, in His mercy, put in for us, here and there, the correction lines.

* * *

When Bud drove home that night his thoughts were far too bitter for a boy of eighteen. A sense of injustice was poisoning the fountains of his heart, and so, when he met Mr. Burrell, he felt he could stand no more. The whole world was against him now, he thought, and he would let them see he didn't care. He would never tell any one now about the wheat. He would never give away his father; but he would leave Millford right straight, leave it for ever, so when Mr. Burrell drew in his horse to speak to him, Bud turned his head and drove rapidly away. Mr. Burrell went home very sad about it all, wondering if Bud were really guilty, but determined to stand by him just the same.

When he got home Mrs. Burrell told him about her interview with Bud. She was thoroughly repentant now, and tearfully declared that she knew now she had been very unwise.

Mr. Burrell drove back that night to see Bud, but he was too late, for Bud had gone.

* * *

Arriving at his home, Bud stabled his horses, and then went into the house. His father was filling bags in the granary, but Bud felt that he could not bear to see him. He went to his own room and hurriedly changed his clothes. He had only one thought—to get away—to get away where no one knew him. In the last few hours the whole world had changed for him—that Mr. Burrell should so easily believe him guilty had overflowed his cup of bitterness.

A red and silver scripture text, in the form of a shield, hung on his bedroom wall; Martha had given it to him, some time ago, and it had often brought him comfort and inspiration.

"He is able to deliver you," it said.

Bud read it now scornfully, and with a sudden impulse tore it down and crushed it in his hands. "There's nothing in it," the boy cried bitterly.

He went out to the pasture and whistled to his pacing colt, which came to him at once. The boy laid his head on the colt's velvet neck and patted it lovingly.

"I'll come back for you, Bunko," he said. "You're mine, anyway."

The colt rubbed his head against Bud's arm.

Across the ravine, where the fringed blue gentian looked up from the sere grass, the cows were grazing, and Bud, from habit, went for them and brought them up to the bars.