"What?" he asked.
"Folks said"—she hesitated—"folks said you was a drinkin' man."
He laughed out.
"I did get overtaken," he owned. "I was awful discouraged, the night I struck here. I didn't care whether school kept or not. But 'twas Lew Parker's whiskey," he added, twinkling at her. "That whiskey'd poison a rat."
She paused, with a handful of chips gathered from the clean grass.
"What was you discouraged about?" she asked kindly.
"Well,"—he hesitated,—"I may as well tell you. I've invented somethin'. It goes onto a reaper. Mother never believed in it, an' she turned me down. So I came East. I couldn't get anybody to look at it, an' I was pretty blue. Then the same day I busted my ankle I heard from another man, an' he'll buy it an' take all the risk, an'—George! I guess mother'll sing small when Johnnie comes marchin' home!"
He looked so strong and full of hope that her own sorrow cried, and her face worked piteously.
"You goin' back?" she faltered.
"Sometime, aunt Het. 'Long towards fall, maybe, to get things into shape. Then I'm comin' back again, to put it through. Who's that?"