"Wha' d' they do?" Silence. "Tell me."

"They--pinched me, an'--an'--talked mean to me," she replied, breaking down again with the memory of the insult.

Anson began to understand.

"Wal, there! You dry y'r eyes, Flaxie, an' go an' git supper; they won't do it again--not _this_ harvest," he added grimly as he marched to the door to enter the buggy.

Bert, coming along from the barn and seeing Anson about to drive away, asked where he was going. Anson tried to look indifferent.

"Oh, I've got a little business to transact with Reeves and some other smart Aleck downtown."

"What's up? What have they be'n doing?" asked Gearheart, reading trouble in the eyes of his friend.

"Well, they have be'n a little too fresh with Flaxen to-day, an' need a lesson."

"They're equal to it. Say, Anson, let me go," laying his hand on the dasher, ready to leap in.

"No: you're too brash. You wouldn't know when to quit. No: you stay right here. Don't say anything to Flaxen about it; if she wants to know where I'm gone, tell her I found I was out o' nails."

As Anson drove along swiftly he was in a savage mood and thinking deeply. Two or three times of late some of his friends had touched rather freely upon the fact that Flaxen was becoming a woman. "Girls ripen early out in this climate," one old chap had said, "and your little Norsk there is likely to leave you one of these days." He felt now that something deliberately and inexpressibly offensive had been said and done to his little girl. He didn't want to know just what it was, but just who did it; that was all. It was time to make a protest.

Hitching his horse to a ring in the sidewalk upon arrival, he walked into the drug store, which was also the post-office. Young Reeves was inside the post-office corner giving out the mail, and Anson sauntered about the store waiting his chance.

He was a dangerous-looking man just now. Ordinarily his vast frame, huge, grizzled beard, and stern, steady eyes would quell a panther; but now as he leaned against the counter a shrewd observer would have said, "Lookout for him; he's dangerous."

His gray shirt, loose at the throat, showed a neck that resembled the spreading base of an oak tree, and his crossed limbs and half-rec.u.mbent pose formed a curious opposition to the look in his eyes.

n.o.body noticed him specially. Most comers and goers, being occupied with their mail, merely nodded and pa.s.sed on.

Finally some one called for a cigar, and Reeves, having finished in the post-office department, came jauntily along behind the counter directly to where Anson stood. As he looked casually into the giant's eyes he started back, but too late; one vast hand had clutched him by the collar, and he was jerked over the counter and cuffed from hand to hand, like a mouse in the paws of a cat. Though Ans used his open palm, the punishment was fearful. Blood burst from his victim's nose and mouth; he yelled with fright and pain.

The rest rushed to help.

"Stand back! This is a private affair," said Ans, throwing up a warning hand. They paused; all knew his strength.

"It wasn't me!" screamed Reeves as the punishment increased; "it was Doc Coe."

Coe, his hands full of papers and letters, horrified at what had overtaken Reeves, stood looking on. But now he tried to escape.

Flinging the battered, half-senseless Reeves back over the counter, where he lay in a heap, Anson caught Coe by the coat just as he was rushing past him, and duplicated the punishment, ending by kicking him into the street, where he lay stunned and helpless. Ans said then, in a voice that the rest heard, "The next time you insult a girl, you'd better inquire into the qualities of her guardeen."

This little matter attended to, he unhitched his horse from the sidewalk, and refusing to answer any questions, rode off home, outwardly as calm as though he had just been shaking hands.

Supper was about ready when he drove up, and through the open door he could see the white-covered table and could hear the cheerful clatter of dishes. Flaxen was whistling. Eight years of hard work had not done much for these st.u.r.dy souls, but they had managed to secure with incredible toil a comfortable little house surrounded with outbuildings. Calves and chickens gave life to the barn-yard, and fields of wheat rippled and ran with swash of heavy-bearded heads and dapple of shadow and sheen.

Flaxen was now the housewife and daughter of these hard-working pioneers, and a cheery and capable one she had become. No one had ever turned up with a better claim to her, and so she had grown up with Ans and Bert, going to school when she could spare the time, but mainly being adviser and a.s.sociate at the farm.

Ans and Bert had worked hard winter and summer trying to get ahead, but had not succeeded as they had hoped. Crops had failed for three or four years, and money was scarce with them; but they had managed to build this small frame house and to get a little stock about them, and this year, with a good crop, would "swing clear," and be able to do something for Flaxen--perhaps send her to Belleplain to school; togged out like a little queen.

When Anson returned to the house after putting out the horse, he found Bert reading the paper in the little sitting-room and Flaxen putting the tea on the stove.

"Wha' d' y' do to him, pap?" laughed she, all her anger gone. Bert came out to listen.

"Oh, nothin' p'tic'lar," answered Ans, flinging his hat at a chicken that made as though to come in, and rolling up his sleeves preparatory to sozzling his face at the sink. "I jest cuffed 'em a little, an' let 'em go."

"Is that all?" said Flaxen, disappointedly, a comical look on her round face.

"Now, don't you worry," put in Bert. "Anson's cuffin' a man is rather severe experience. I saw him cuff a man once; it ain't anythin' to be desired a second time."

They all drew about the table. Flaxen looked very womanly as she sat cutting the bread and pouring the tea. She had always been old in her ways about the house, for she had very early a.s.sumed the housewife's duties and cares. Her fresh-coloured face beamed with delight as she watched the hungry men devouring the fried pork, potatoes, and cheese.

"When y' goin' to begin cuttin', boys?" Collectively they were boys to her, but when addressing them separately they were "Bert" and "Pap."

"To-morrow 'r nex' day, I guess," answered Anson, looking out of the open door. "Don't it look fine--all yeller an' green? I tell ye they ain't anything lays over a ripe field o' wheat in my eyes. You jest take it when the sun strikes it right, an' the wind is playin' on it--when it kind o' sloshes around like water--an' the clouds go over it, droppin' shadders down on it, an' a hawk kind o' goes skimmin' over it, divin' into it once in a while----"

He did not finish; it was not necessary.

"Yes, sir!" adjudged Gearheart, after a pause, leaning his elbows on the table and looking out of the door on the far-stretching, sun-glorified plain.

"The harvest kind o' justifies the winter we have out here. That is, when we have a harvest such as this. Fact is, we fellers live six months o' the year lookin' ahead to harvest, an' t'other six months lookin' back to it. Well, this won't buy the woman a dress, Ans. We must get that header set up to-night if we can."

They pushed their chairs back noisily and rose to go out. Flaxen said:

"Say, which o' you boys is goin' to help me churn to-night?"

Anson groaned, while she laughed.

"I don't know, Flax; ask us an easier one."

"We'll attend to that after it gets too dark to work on the machine,"

added Bert.

"Well, see 't y' do. I can't do it; I've got bread to mix an' a chicken to dress. Say, if you don't begin cuttin' till day after to-morrow, we can go down to the sociable to-morrow night. Last one o' the season."

"I wish it was the last one before the kingdom come," growled Bert as he "stomped" out the door. "They're a bad lot. The idea o' takin' down four dollars' worth o' grub an' then payin' four dollars for the privilege of eatin' half of it! I'll take my chicken here, when I'm hungry."

"Bert ain't partial to sociables, is he, pap?" laughed Flaxen.

"I should hate to have the minister dependin' on Bert for a livin'."

"Sa-ay, pap!"

"Wal, babe?"

"I expect I'll haf t' have a new dress one o' these days."

"Think so?"

"You bet."