She set forth a prodigal supper on a leaf of the table, and Solon silently worked his will upon it, the schoolmaster eating a bit for company. Then Solon took his way home to the house across the yard, and she watched at the window till she saw the light blaze up through his panes. That accomplished, she turned back with a long breath and began clearing up.
"I'm worried to death to have him over there all by himself," said she. "S'pose he should be sick in the night!"
"You'd go over," answered the schoolmaster easily.
"Well, s'pose he couldn't git me no word?"
"Oh, you'd know it! You're that sort."
Miss Susan laughed softly, and so seemed to put away her recurrent anxiety. She came back to her knitting.
"How long has his wife been dead?" asked the schoolmaster.
"Two year. He an' Jenny got along real well together, but sence September, when she went away, I guess he's found it pretty dull pickin'. I do all I can, but land! 't ain't like havin' a woman in the house from sunrise to set."
"There's nothing like that," agreed the wise young schoolmaster. "Now let's play some more. Let's plan what we'd like to do to-morrow for all the folks we know, and let's not give them a thing they need, but just the ones they'd like."
Miss Susan put down her knitting again. She never could talk to the schoolmaster and keep at work. It made her dreamy, exactly as it did to sit in the hot summer sunshine, with the droning of bees in the air.