shoulders straightened, his eyes brightened, his steps became springy. He whistled and sang at his work, took an interest in life, and presently even resumed his drawing. The country folk winked knowingly. The two were constantly together when opportunity afforded, so it soon became common report that he was her "feller, fer sure," and she was his "girl."

One evening, as they sat in the dusk down by the creek, which ran through her bit of pasture land, Jud drew his mother's plain gold ring from his little finger and slipped it upon Justine's third. They were betrothed.

Never were such sweethearts as Jud and Justine. They were lovers, friends, comrades. Her sweet, serious face took a new life, new color at his approach, her dreamy eyes grew softer and more wistful, her low voice more musical. Her soul was his, her life belonged to him, her heart beat only for him. Jud's famished hopes of something beyond the farm found fresh encouragement in her simple, wondering praise. She was his critic, his unconscious mentor. Beneath her untrained eye he sketched as he never sketched before. Looking over his shoulder as he lay stretched upon the grass, she marveled at the skill with which his pencil transferred the world about them to the dearly bought drawing pads, and her enthusiastic little cries of delight were tributes that brought confidence to the heart of the artist.

The girl had scores of admirers. Every boy, every man in the township longed to "make up" to her, but she gave no thought to them. Half a dozen widowers with children asked her to marry them. She and Jud laughed when Eversole Baker besought her to become mother to his nine children, including two daughters older than herself.

But there was one determined suitor, and she feared him with an uncanny dread that knew no rest until she was safely Jud's on the wedding night. That one was Eugene Crawley, drunkard and blasphemer.

Crawley was born in the dense timber land north of Glenville. His father had been a woodchopper, hunter, and fisherman. Hard stories came down to town about Sam Crawley. Of 'Gene, the boy, nothing against his honesty at least could be said. He was a vile wretch when drinking, little better when sober, but he was as honest as the sun.

He had gone to school with Jud and Justine when they were little "tads," and his rough affection for her began when they were mastering the "first reader." He and Jud had fought over her twice and each had been a victor. The girl despised him, from childhood, and he knew it. Still, he clung to the hope that he could take her away from his rival. He dogged her footsteps, frightened her with his mad protestations, and finally alarmed her by his threats. The day before the wedding he had met her as she left the schoolhouse and had sworn to kill Jud Sherrod. She did not tell Jud of this, nor did she tell him that she had pleaded with Crawley to spare her lover's life. Had she told Jud all this she would have been obliged to tell him how the brute had suddenly burst into tears and promised he would not harm Jud if he could help it.

CHAPTER IV.

MRS. HARDESTY'S CHARITY.

For many days after their marriage Jud and Justine were obliged to endure coarse jokes, kindly meant if out of tune with their sensitive minds. Happy weeks sped by, weeks replete with the fullness of joy known only to the newly wedded. Days of toil, that had once been long and irksome, now were flitting seasons of anticipation between real joys. At dusk he came home with eyes glowing in the delight that knows no fatigue, with a heart leaping with the love that is young and eager, and blood carousing under the intoxication of passion's wine. In the kitchen door of the little cot, no longer dismal in its weather-worn plainness, there always stood the slim, supple girl, her heart leaping with the eagerness to be clasped in his arms. She was growing into perfect womanhood, perfect in figure, perfect in love, perfect in all its mysteries. Her whole life before now appeared as a dreamless sleep to her; the present was the beginning of a divine dream that softens the rest of life into mellow forgetfulness.

She walked with him in the hayfield, from choice, delighted to toil near him, to breathe the same air, to endure the same sun, to enjoy the same moments of rest beneath the great oaks, to drink from the same brown jug of spring water, to sing, to laugh, to play with him. It was not work. Then came the harvesting, the thrashing, and the fall sowing. Six months were soon gone and still these children played like cupids. Other married people in the neighborhood, whose honeymoons had not been more than a week old before they began to show callous spots, wondered dumbly at the beautiful girl who grew prettier and straighter instead of turning sour, frowsy, and bent under the rigors of connubial joy—as they had found it. They could not understand how the husband could be so blithe and cheery, so upstanding and strong, and so devoted. The wives of the neighborhood pondered over the latter condition. The husbands did not deem it worth while or expedient to wonder—they merely called Jud a "dinged shif'less boy that'll wake up some time er 'nother an' understan' more 'n he does now." Yet they had to admit that Jud was conducting the little farm faultlessly, even though he did find time to moon with his wife, to bask in the sunshine of her love, to wander over wood and field with her beside him, sketching, sketching, eternally sketching.

Rainy days and Sundays brought hours of sweet communion to the happy, simple young couple. So thoroughly were they devoted to one another that their lack of attention to the neighbors was the source of more or less indignation on the part of those who "knowed that Jud and her hadn't no right to be so infernal stuck-up." And yet these same discontents were won over in the briefest conversation with the pair when they chanced to meet. Even the most snappish and envious were overcome by the gentle good humor, the proud simplicity of these young sweethearts, who saw no ugliness, who knew no bitterness, who found life and its hardships no struggle at all.

They were desperately poor, but they made no complaint. The vigor of life was theirs, and they sang as they suffered, looking forward with bright, confident eyes to the East of their dreams, in which their sun of fortune was to rise.

Justine was to have the school another year, beginning in October, after a six-months' vacation. Jud's pride revolted at first against this decision of hers, but she overcame every argument, and he loved her more than ever for the share she was taking in the dull battle against poverty. The land he tilled was not fertile; it had been overworked for years. The crops were growing thinner; the timber was slowly falling beneath the stove-wood ax; the meadow plot was almost barren of grass. It was not a productive "thirty," and they knew it. There was a bare existence in it when crops were good, but there was, as yet, no mortgage to face. Jud owned a team of horses, and Justine two cows and a dozen hogs. They had no other vehicle than a farm wagon, old and rattling. When they went to the village it was in this wagon; when to church, they walked, although the distance was two miles, so tender was their pride.

Little Justine was the politic one. Jud was proud, and was ever ready to resent the kindly offices of neighbors. Had it been left to him, young Henry Bossman would have been summarily dismissed when he offered to help Jud stack the hay, "jes' fer ole times' sake." It was Justine who welcomed poor, awkward Henry, and it was she who sent him away rejoicing over a good deed, determined to help "Jud and Justine ever' time he had a chanst."

It was she who accepted the proffer to thrash their thirty acres of wheat, free of charge, from David Strong, stopping off one day as his separator and engine passed by. She thanked him so graciously that he went his way wondering whether