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"Dat ugly Oleson girl, she teach in de school," Joe gasped, "an’ she still walk chust like dat, yup-a, yup-a, yup-a, chust like a camel she go! Now, Nils, we have some more li’l drink. Oh, yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes-yes! Dis time you haf to drink, and Clara she haf to, so she show she not jealous. So, we all drink to your girl. You not tell her name, eh? No-no-no, I no make you tell. She pretty, eh? She make good sweetheart? I bet!" Joe winked and lifted his glass. "How soon you get married?"

Nils screwed up his eyes. "That I don’t know. When she says. "

Joe threw out his chest. "Das-a way boys talks. No way for mans. Mans say, ‘You come to de church, an’ get a hurry on you.’ Das-a way mans talks. "

"Maybe Nils hasn’t got enough to keep a wife," put in Clara ironically. "How about that, Nils?" she asked him frankly, as if she wanted to know.

Nils looked at her coolly, raising one eyebrow. "Oh, I can keep her, all right. "

"The way she wants to be kept?"

"With my wife, I’ll decide that," replied Nils calmly. "I’ll give her what’s good for her. "

Clara made a wry face. "You’ll give her the strap, I expect, like old Peter Oleson gave his wife. "

"When she needs it," said Nils lazily, locking his hands behind his head and squinting up through the leaves of the cherry tree. "Do you remember the time I squeezed the cherries all over your clean dress, and Aunt Johanna boxed my ears for me? My gracious, weren’t you mad! You had both hands full of cherries, and I squeezed ’em and made the juice fly all over you. I liked to have fun with you; you’d get so mad. "

"We didhave fun, didn’t we? None of the other kids ever had so much fun. We knew how to play. "

Nils dropped his elbows on the table and looked steadily across at her. "I’ve played with lots of girls since, but I haven’t found one who was such good fun. "

Clara laughed. The late afternoon sun was shining full in her face, and deep in the back of her eyes there shone something fiery, like the yellow drops of Tokai in the brown glass bottle. "Can you still play, or are you only pretending?"

"I can play better than I used to, and harder. "

"Don’t you ever work, then?" She had not intended to say it. It slipped out because she was confused enough to say just the wrong thing.

"I work between times. " Nils’ steady gaze still beat upon her. "Don’t you worry about my working, Mrs. Ericson. You’re getting like all the rest of them. " He reached his brown, warm hand across the table and dropped it on Clara’s, which was cold as an icicle. "Last call for play, Mrs. Ericson!" Clara shivered, and suddenly her hands and cheeks grew warm. Her fingers lingered in his a moment, and they looked at each other earnestly. Joe Vavrika had put the mouth of the bottle to his lips and was swallowing the last drops of the Tokai, standing. The sun, just about to sink behind his shop, glistened on the bright glass, on his flushed face and curly yellow hair. "Look," Clara whispered; "that’s the way I want to grow old. "

VI

On the day of Olaf Ericson’s barn-raising, his wife, for once in a way, rose early. Johanna Vavrika had been baking cakes and frying and boiling and spicing meats for a week beforehand, but it was not until the day before the party was to take place that Clara showed any interest in it. Then she was seized with one of her fitful spasms of energy, and took the wagon and little Eric and spent the day on Plum Creek, gathering vines and swamp goldenrod to decorate the barn.