the yellow lantern, swung between its wheels, rolled like a star down the road to Milford.

"Why so quiet, Tom?"

"Am I, Ann?"

"Angry?"

"Just thinking . . . so to say."

"Oh." And she began to hum under her breath.

"I was just thinking," he said again.

Then, solemnly, he added, "about things."

"About you and me," he wound up finally.

When she offered him a penny for his thoughts, he said, "Well . . . nothing."

"Dear me."

At his hard cluck the wagon swept forward. "You know what I was thinking," he said.

"Do I?" asked Anna innocently.

"Don't you?"

"Perhaps."

So they went on through the dark, under the trees, to Milford. When their little world, smelling of harness, came to a halt in front of the drug store, they descended to quench their thirst with syrup, gas, milk, and lard. Then, with dreamy faces, they made their way to the movies.

Now their hands are clasped, but they do not notice each other. For they do not know where they are; they imagine they are acting upon the screen. It is a mistake which charms and consoles them both. "How beautiful I am," thinks Anna drowsily, watching Miss Gish. "And how elegant to be in love."

Later Anna will say to herself: "Other people's lives are like that."

On the way home she sat smiling and dreaming. The horse ran briskly through the night mist; and the wheels, rumbling over the ground, turned up the thoughts of simple Thomas Frye, only to plow them under again.

"Ann," he said when they were more than half-way home, "don't you care for me . . . any more?" As he spoke, he cut at the black trees with his long whip.

"Yes, I do, Tom."

"As much as you did?"

"Just as much."

"More, Ann?"

"Maybe."

"Then . . . will you? Say, will you, Ann?"

"I don't know, Tom. Don't ask me. Please."

"But I've got to ask you," he cried.

"Oh, what's the good." And she looked away, to where the faint light of the lantern fled along beside them, over the trees.

"Is it," he said slowly, "is it no?"

"Well, then—no."

Thomas was silent. At last he asked, "Is it a living man, Ann?"

"No," said Anna.

"Is it a dead man, now?"

Anna moved uneasily. "No, it isn't," she said. "'Tisn't anybody."

But Thomas persisted. "Would it be Noel, if he warn't dead in France?"

"Maybe."

"You're not going to keep on thinking of him, are you?"

"I don't plan to."

"Then—" and Thomas came back to the old question once more, "why not?"

"Why not what?"

"Take me, then?"

"Well," she said vaguely, "I'm too young."

"I'd wait."

"'Twouldn't help any. I want so much, Tom . . . you couldn't give me all I want."

He said, "What is it I couldn't give you?"

"I don't know, Tom . . . I want what other people have . . . experiences . . ."

At his bitter laugh, she was filled with pity for herself. "Is it so funny?" she asked. "I don't care."

"Whatever's got into you, Ann?"

"I don't know there's anything got into me beyond I don't want to grow old—and dry. . . ."

"I don't see as you can help it any."

But Anna was tipsy with youth: she swore she'd be dead before she was old.

"Hush, Ann."

"Why should I hush?" she asked. "It's the truth."

"It's a lie, that's what it is," said Thomas.

"Do you hate me, Tom?" she said. And she sat looking steadily before her.

"I don't know what's got into you. You act so queer."

"I want to be happy," she whispered.

"Then . . . you can do as you like for all of me."

But as they rode along in silence, wrapped in mist, she drew closer to him, all her reckless spirit gone. "There . . . you've made me cry," she said, and put her hand, cold and moist, into his.

"Aren't you going to kiss me, Tom?"

He slapped the reins bitterly across his horse's back. "What's the good of that?" he asked, in turn.

"Perhaps," she said faintly, "there isn't any. Oh, I don't know . . . what's the difference?"

And so they rode on in silence, with pale cheeks and strange thoughts.

IV

MR. JEMINY BUILDS A HOUSE OUT OF BOXES

Mr. Jeminy liked to call on Mrs. Wicket, whose little cottage, at the edge of the village, on the way to Milford, had belonged to Eben Wicket for nearly fifty years. Now it belonged to the widow of Eben's son, John. Mr. Jeminy remembered John Wicket as a boy in school. He was a rogue; his head was already so full of mischief, that it was impossible to teach him anything. So he was not much wiser when he left school, than when he entered it. However, Mr. Jeminy was satisfied with his instruction. "With more knowledge," the old schoolmaster thought to himself, "he might do a great deal of harm in the world. So perhaps it is just as well for him to be ignorant." And he consoled himself with this reflection.

A year later John Wicket ran away from home, taking with him the money which his father kept in a stone jug in the kitchen. Old Mr. Wicket refused to send after him. "I didn't need the money," he said, "and I don't need him. Well, they're both gone."

But after a while, since his son was no longer there to plague him, he began to feel proud of him. "An out and out scamp," he said, with relish. "Never seen the like."

John Wicket was gone for three years, no one knew where. At last Eben received news of him again. His son, who had been living all this time in a nearby village, fell from a ladder and broke his neck. "Just," said Eben Wicket, "as I expected."

No one, however, expected to see his widow come to live with her father-in-law. The old man himself went to fetch her and her year-old child. She proved to be a small, plain body, with an air of fright about her, as though life had surprised her. Out of respect for Eben, as they put it, the gossips went to call. They found her shy, and inclined to be silent; they drank their tea, and examined her with curiosity, while she, for her part, seemed to want to hide away.

"As who wouldn't, in her place," said Mrs. Ploughman.

It was agreed that, having married an out-and-out rascal, she ought to be willing to spend the remainder of her life quietly. So she was left to herself, which seemed, on the face of it, to be about what she wanted. She tended Eben's house, drove the one cow to pasture, and sang to little Juliet from morning till night the songs she remembered from her own childhood.

During that time no one had any fault to find with her, excepting old Mrs. Crabbe, who thought she should have called her child Mary instead of Juliet. "It's not a proper name," she said to Mrs. Tomkins. "It isn't in the Bible, Mrs. Tomkins. You'd do as well to call the child Salomy. Salomy's in the Bible."

When Eben Wicket died, early in 1917, he left his house and about an acre of land to his daughter-in-law. She was poor;