"You ain't goin' away while I'm sick?" she asked, following him with her eyes, unnaturally large.

"I won't never go 'way again if you don't want me to," he replied.

"Oh, I'm so glad!" she sighed restfully.

He was turning to go when she wailed reproachfully, "Pap, you didn't kiss baby!"

Anson turned and came back. "She's sleepin', an' I thought it wasn't right to kiss a girl without she said so."

This made Flaxen smile, and Anson went out with a lighter heart than he had had for two years. Kendall met him outside and said confidentially:

"I don't s'pose it was just the thing for me to do; but--confound it! I never could stand a sick-room, anyway. I couldn't do any good, anyway--just been in the way. She'll get over her mad in a few days.

Think so?"

But she did not. Her singular and sudden dislike of him continued, and though she pa.s.sively submitted to his being in the room, she would not speak a word to him nor look at him as long as she could avoid it; and when he approached the baby or took it in his arms a jealous frown came on her face.

As for Anson, he grew to hate the sound of that little chuckle of Kendall's; the part in the man's hair and the hang of his cut-away coat made him angry. The trim legs, a little bowed, the big cuffs hiding the small, cold hands, and the peculiar set of his faultless collar, grew daily more insupportable.

"Say, looky here, Kendall," said he in desperation one day, "I wish you didn't like me quite so well. We don't hitch first rate--at least, I don't. Seems to me you're neglectin' your business too much."

He was going to tell him to keep away, but he relented as he looked down at the harmless little man, with his thin, boyish face.

"Oh, my business is all right. Gregory looks after it mostly, anyhow.

But, I say, if you wanted to go into the dray business, there's a first-cla.s.s opening now. Clark wants to sell."

It ended in Anson seeing Clark and buying out his line of drays, turning in his claim toward the payment--a transaction which made Flaxen laugh for joy, for she had not felt certain before that he would remain in St. Peter. She was getting about the house now, looking very wifely in her long, warm wraps, her slow motions contrasting strongly with the old restless, springing steps Anson remembered so well.

Night after night, as he sat beside the fire and held baby, listening to the changed voice of his girl and watching the grave, new expressions of her face, the tooth of time took hold upon him powerfully, and he would feel his s.h.a.ggy head and think, "I'll soon be gray, soon be gray!" while the little one cooed, and sprang, and pulled at his beard, which had grown long again and had white hairs in it.

Kendall spent most of his time at the store, or downtown somewhere, and so all of those long, delicious winter evenings were Flaxen's and Anson's. And his enjoyment of them was pathetic. The cheerful little sitting-room, the open grate, the gracious, ever-growing womanliness of Elga, the pressure of soft little limbs; and the babble of a liquid baby language, were like the charm of an unexpected Indian-summer day between two gray November storms.

CHAPTER XIV.

KENDALL STEPS OUT.

One night Kendall did not come home, but as he had been talking of going to St. Paul they were not disturbed about it--in fact, they both took but very mild interest in his coming or going. In the morning, while they were at breakfast, there came a knock at the door.

"Come in," shouted Anson in the Western way, not rising.

McDaniel, the county sheriff, entered.

"Where's Kendall?" he asked without ceremony.

"I don't know; went away yesterday."

The sheriff looked at his companion. "Skipped between two days."

"What's up?" asked Anson, while Elga stared and baby reached slyly for the sugar-bowl.

"Nothing," the sheriff said in a tone which meant everything. "Come out here," he said to Anson. Anson went out with him, and he told him that Kendall had purchased goods on credit and gambled the money away, and was ruined.

His stock of goods was seized, and the house was saved only through the firmness of Anson.

Flaxen shut her lips and said nothing, and he could not read her silence. One day she came to him with a letter.

"Read that!" she exclaimed scornfully. He saw that it was dated from Eau Claire, Wisconsin:

DEAR DARLING WIFE: I'm all right here with father. It was all Gregory's fault--he was always betting on something. I'm coming back as soon as the old man can raise the money to pay Fitch.

Don't worry about me. They can't take the house, anyway. You might rent the house, sell the furniture on the sly, and come back here. The old man will give me another show. I don't owe more than a thousand dollars, anyway. Write soon. Your loving

WILL.

She did not need to say what she thought of the advice the little villain gave.

Anson went quietly on with his work, making a living for himself and Flaxen and baby. It never occurred to either of them that any other arrangement was necessary. Kendall wrote once or twice a month for awhile, saying each time, "I'll come back and settle up," and asking her to come to him; but she did not reply, and never referred to him outside her home, and when others inquired after him she replied evasively:

"He's in Wisconsin somewhere; I don't know where."

"Is he coming back?"

"I don't know."

She often spoke of Bert, and complained of his silence. Once she said:

"I guess he's forgot us, pap."

"I guess not. More likely he's thinkin' we've fergot him. He'll turn up some bright mornin' with a pocketful o' rocks. He ain't no spring chicken, Bert ain't." ("All the same, I wish't he'd write," Anson said to himself.)

The sad death of Kendall came to them without much disturbing force. He had been out of their lives so long that when Anson came in with the paper and letter telling of the accident, and with his instinctive delicacy left her alone to read the news, Flaxen was awed and saddened, but had little sense of personal pain and loss.

"Young Kendall," the newspaper went on under its scare-heads, "was on a visit to La Crosse, and while skating with a party on the bayou, where the La Crosse River empties into the Father of Waters, skated into an air-hole. The two young ladies with him were rescued, but the fated man was swept under the ice. He was the son," etc.

When Anson came back Flaxen sat with the letter in her hand and the paper on her lap. She was meditating deeply, but what was in her mind Anson never knew. She had grown more and more reticent of late. She sighed, rose, and resumed her evening tasks.

CHAPTER XV.

BERT COMES BACK.