Other Main-Travelled Roads | Page 3

ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin' t'
be married?"
"No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and darting
away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went
busily on about her cooking. Lime threw a kiss at her, and fell to work
on his log with startling energy.
Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much
trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear
of anything--but a girl.

Marietta was not only the old man's only child, but his housekeeper, his
wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm. It was
reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on
the girl reluctantly. Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and
would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.
Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming axe into the
huge maple logs. He was something more than the usual hired man,
being a lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out
his interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for
Bacon. He had a nice "little wad o' money" when he left the camp and
started for La Crosse, but he had been robbed in his hotel the first night
in the city, and was left nearly penniless. It was a great blow to him, for,
as he said, every cent of that money "stood fer hard knocks an' poor
feed. When I smelt of it I could jest see the cold, frosty mornin's and
the late nights. I could feel the hot sun on my back like it was when I
worked in the harvest-field. By jingo! It kind o' made my toes curl up."
But he went resolutely out to work again, and here he was chopping
wood in old man Bacon's yard, thinking busily on the talk which had
just passed between Marietta and himself.
"By jingo!" he said all at once, stopping short, with the axe on his
shoulder. "If I hadn't 'a' been robbed I wouldn't 'a' come here--I never'd
met Merry. Thunder and jimson root! Wasn't that a narrow escape?"
And then he laughed so heartily that the girl looked out of the window
again to see what in the world he was doing. He had his hat in his hand
and was whacking his thigh with it.
"Lyman Gilman, what in the world ails you to-day? It's perfectly
ridiculous the way you yell and talk t' y'rself out there on the chips.
You beat the hens, I declare if you don't."
Lime put on his hat and walked up to the window, and, resting his great
bare arms on the sill, and his chin on his arms, said:--
"Merry, I'm goin' to tackle 'Dad' this afternoon. He'll be sittin' up the

new seeder, and I'm goin' t' climb right on the back of his neck. He's
jest got t' give me a chance."
Marietta looked sober in sympathy.
"Well! P'raps it's best to have it over with, Lime, but someway I feel
kind o' scary about it."
Lime stood for a long time looking in at the window, watching the
light-footed girl as she set the table in the middle of the sun-lighted
kitchen floor. The kettle hissed, the meat sizzled, sending up a delicious
odor; a hen stood in the open door and sang a sort of cheery half-human
song, while to and fro moved the sweet-faced, lithe, and powerful girl,
followed by the smiling eyes at the window.
"Merry, you look purty as a picture. You look just like the wife I be'n
a-huntin' for all these years, sure's shootin'."
Marietta colored with pleasure.
"Does Dad pay you to stand an' look at me an' say pretty things t' the
cook?"
"No, he don't. But I'm willin' t' do it without pay. I could just stand here
till kingdom come an' look at you. Hello! I hear a wagon. I guess I
better hump into that woodpile."
"I think so too. Dinner's most ready, and Dad 'll be here soon."
Lime was driving away furiously at a tough elm log when Farmer
Bacon drove into the yard with a new seeder in his wagon. Lime
whacked away busily while Bacon stabled the team, and in a short time
Marietta called, in a long-drawn, musical fashion:--
"Dinner-r-r!"
After sozzling their faces at the well the two men went in and sat down
at the table. Bacon was not much of a talker at any time, and at
meal-time, in seeding, eating was the main business in hand; therefore

the meal was a silent one, Marietta and Lime not caring to talk on
general topics. The hour was an anxious