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“You look pretty nice this mornin’,” he remarked.

Letty gave a little dancing step and laughed. The sun was bright; there was a purple haze over the hills, and the nearer woods were yellow. The world was a jewel newly set for her.

“I am nice!” said she. “David, do you know our anniversary’s comin’ on? It’s ‘most a year since we were married,–a year the fifteenth.”

David loosened the last wheel, and rose to look at her.

“Sho!” said he, with great interest “Is that so? Well, ‘t was a good bargain. Best trade I ever made in my life!”

“And we’ve got to celebrate,” said Letty masterfully. “I’ll tell you how. I’ve had it all planned for a month. We’ll get up at four, have our breakfast, ride over to Star Pond, and picnic all day long. We’ll take a boat and go out rowin’, and we’ll eat our dinner on the water!”

David smiled back at her, and then, with a sudden recollection, pursed his lips.

“I’m awful sorry, Letty,” he said honestly, “but I’ve got to go over to Long Pastur’ an’ do that fencin’, or I can’t put the cattle in there before we turn ’em into the shack. You know that fence was all done up in the spring, but that cussed breachy cow o’ Tolman’s hooked it down; an’ if I wait for him to do it–well, you know what he is!”

“Oh, you can put off your fencin’!” cried Letty. “Only one day! Oh, you can!”

“I could ‘most any other time,” said David, with reason, “but here it is ‘most Saturday, an’ next week the thrashin’-machine’s comin’. I’m awful sorry, Letty. I am, honest!”

Letty turned half round like a troubled child, and began grinding one heel into the turf. She was conscious of an odd mortification. It was not, said her heart, that the thing itself was so dear to her; it was only that David ought to want immeasurably to do it. She always put great stress upon the visible signs of an invisible bond, and she would be long in getting over her demand for the unreason of love.

David threw down the monkey-wrench, and put an arm about her waist.

“Come, now, you don’t care, do you?” he asked lovingly. “One day’s the same as another, now ain’t it?”

“Is it?” said Letty, a smile running over her face and into her wet eyes. “Well, then, le’s have Fourth o’ July fireworks next Sunday mornin’!”

David looked a little hurt; but that was only because he was puzzled. His sense of humor wore a different complexion from Letty’s. He liked a joke, and he could tell a good story, but they must lie within the logic of fun. Letty could put her own interpretation on her griefs, and twist them into shapes calculated to send her into hysterical mirth.

“You see,” said David soothingly, “we’re goin’ to be together as long as we live. It ain’t as if we’d got to rake an’ scrape an’ plan to git a minute alone, as it used to be, now is it? An’ after the fencin’ ‘s done, an’ the thrashin’, an’ we’ve got nothin’ on our minds, we’ll take both horses an’ go to Star Pond. Come, now! Be a good girl!”

The world seemed very quiet because Letty was holding silence, and he looked anxiously down at the top of her head. Then she relented a little and turned her face up to his–her rebellious eyes and unsteady mouth. But meeting the loving honesty of his look, her heart gave a great bound of allegiance, and she laughed aloud.

“There!” she said. “Have it so. I won’t say another word. I don’t care!”

These were David’s unconscious victories, born, not of his strength or tyranny, but out of the woman’s maternal comprehension, her lavish concession of all the small things of life to the one great code. She had taken him for granted, and thenceforth judged him by the intention and not the act.