“Mother,” Eloise said firmly, after supper when John had gone over to the office, “I’m going to call you ‘Mother’ right on the start and then it won’t be hard.”

“I hope,” said Abbie gently, “it won’t be hard to call me ‘Mother.’ ”

“Oh, no,” Eloise said firmly. “I’m not going to let it be hard. That’s why I’m beginning at once. Mother, John’s and my marriage is to be different from other marriages.”

“How, Eloise?”

“Because I’m going at it in a businesslike, systematic way.”

“Yes,” said Abbie, “that’s a good way.”

“I’m going to make our home a well-organized place of rest and peace for John.”

“That will be nice.”

“You see mistakes on all sides and I’m not going to make any.”

“No,” said Abbie, “of course you won’t.”

“I’ve been reading everything on the subject and I know that I’m well prepared.”

“Yes,” said Abbie meekly, “I think you are.”

“She has everything, Will,” Abbie said to the spirit who was comrade and confidante, “education, looks, high ideals, efficiency,—everything but a sense of humor. And oh, Will, how John will miss it.”

He admires her, Abbie.

“And loves her, Will, and love covers many things.”

The next year Abbie sold the rest of the acreage to Gus Reinmueller, retaining the five acres which contained the house and out-buildings, the orchard and one pasture. Gus paid twelve thousand dollars for it, giving four thousand in cash and an interest-bearing note. “Now we can plan for Grace to go to the University,” Abbie said. “Grace wants to be a teacher and now I can help her.”

Now that the land was sold, Abbie did not have to think of the responsibility of the crops, but her hands were still busy with chickens, and pigs and the cow. She drove a sorrel mare now back and forth, attending everything that went on in Cedartown, which she felt would benefit her mentally, and she did not miss a church service or Ladies’ Aid. One of the attractions that summer, which she and Grace patronized, was an entertainment in the opera house, purporting to be a sort of magic-lantern show in which the people in the picture would move about as they were thrown on the sheet.

“It may be true,” Abbie admitted, but added with frank suspicion that there was probably a catch in it somewhere.

The program opened with a piece by the Cedartown orchestra. Probably the Boston Symphony could have done as well, but old Charlie Beadle, who was leader and drummer, would not have admitted it. A male quartet next sang, “Out on the Deep When the Sun Is Low.” One gathered the rather disquieting impression from their forlorn and hopeless tones that there was small prospect of ever seeing the center of the solar system again. Miss Happy Joy Hansen then spoke “The Raggedy Man, He Works for Paw,” with so much childish lisping and so much coy twisting of an imaginary apron, that one never in the world could have guessed her age, unless he had known, as all Cedartown did, that, neither happily nor joyously, would she ever, ever again see thirty-two.