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Her hands grew smooth and supple once more, and her face lost the parboiled look it once had.

Claude noticed all these gains and commented on them with the freedom of a man who had established friendly relations with a child.

"I tell you what, Nina, you’re coming along, sure. Next ground hop you’ll be wearin’ silk stockin’s and high-heeled shoes. How’s the old man? Still mad?"

"He don’t speak to me no more. My mudder says I am a big fool. "

"She does? Well, you tell her I think you’re just getting sensible. "

She smiled again, and there was a subtle quality in the mixture of boldness and timidity of her manner. His praise was so sweet and stimulating.

"I sold my pigs," she said. "The old man, he wass madt, but I didn’t mind. I pought me a new dress with the money. "

"That’s right! I like to see a woman have plenty Of new dresses," Claude replied. He was really enjoying the girl’s rebellion and growing womanliness.

Meanwhile his own affairs with Lucindy were in a bad way. He seldom saw her now. Mrs. Smith was careful to convey to her that Claude stopped longer than was necessary at Haldeman’s, and so Mrs. Kennedy attended to the matter of recording the cream. Kennedy hersell was always in the field, and Claude had no opportunity for a conversation with him, as he very much wished to have. Once, when he saw ‘Cindy in the kitchen at work, he left his team to rest in the shade and sauntered to the door and looked in.

She was kneading out cake dough, and she looked the loveliest thing he had ever seen. Her sleeves were rolled up. Her neat brown dress w
as covered with a big apron, and her collar was open a liffle at the throat, for it was warm in the kitchen. She frowned when she saw him.

He began jocularly. "Oh, thank you, I can wait till it bakes. No trouble at all. "

"Well, it’s a good deal of trouble to me to have you standin’ there gappin’ at me!"

"Ain’t gappin’ at you. I’m waitin’ for the pie. "

"’Tain’t pie; it’s cake. "

"Oh, well, cake’ll do for a change. Say, ‘Cindy–"

"Don’t call me ‘Cindy!"

"Well, Lucindy. It’s mighty lonesome when I don’t see you on my trips. "

"Oh, I guess you can stand it with Nina to talk to. "

"Aha! jealous, are you?"

"Jealous of that Dutchwoman! I don’t care who you talk to, and you needn’t think it. "

Claude was learned in woman’s ways, and this pleased him mightily.

"Well, when shall I speak to your daddy?"

"I don’t know what you mean, and I don’t care. "

"Oh, yes, you do. I’m going to come up here next Sunday in my best bib and tucker, and I’m going to say, ‘Mr. Kennedy’–‘

The sound of Mrs. Kennedy’s voice and footsteps approaching made Claude suddenly remember his duties.

"See ye later," he said with a grin. "I’ll call for the cake next time. "

"Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said ‘Cindy.

Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but it didn’t. Lucindy went to Minneapolis for a few weeks to stay with her brother, and that threw Claude deeper into despair than anything Mrs. Kennedy might do or any word Lucindy might say. It was a dreadful blow to him to have her pack up and go so suddenly and without one backward look at him, and, besides, he had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of July.

Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude where she had gone.

"By mighty! That’s a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"