"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!"