At this Jeanie put her arms around Agnes and peace was concluded, Agnes feeling that though she had gained her point, it was at the sorry cost of a bit of her own self-respect, and she felt ashamed at having pressed Jeanie so hard as to make her give up the secret which was her own dear girlish dream. She determined at once that she would do all that she could to make matters easy for the pair, and that they should never have reason to reproach her for a lack of friendship.
The Indian alarm came to nothing, yet because of her father Agnes was glad to stay at the fort all summer, though she longed for the little cabin and for the time when her mother should come. How long it seemed since she left her old home and started forth to this new Ohio country. It had been a month or more since she had been down to the little clearing to which she and Polly hoped soon to return, for now the cold weather would soon set in and the danger from Indians would be over. Archie, who had ridden by frequently, reported all in good order, and they concluded that Jerry Hunter must be there, as Archie had seen smoke coming from the chimney on more than one occasion. “I didn’t go in,” he told Agnes, “for it seemed all in first-rate condition.”
“That’s good to know,” Agnes returned. “I dreaded to see it looking dilapidated, and, besides,—” she hesitated, “I didn’t know but that Humphrey Muirhead might have tried to do some damage to the place, knowing we were away.”
“I don’t know that he does know it; he has been keeping pretty quiet lately. I suppose he feels safe, and knows that you will not trouble him again.”
“I wish I could.”
Archie smiled. “It would only be worse for you if you did. Faith, Agnes, in this country where there’s land enough, and to spare, why do you hanker after Naboth’s vineyard?”
“If it were Naboth’s vineyard, I wouldn’t hanker, for I’d have no right to, but I feel, and always shall feel, that grandfather intended my mother to have that place. It is the best about here. He put time and money in it, and the house is such a good roomy one, while the farm is cleared far more than most of the others, and one could make a good living from it. If we could have the place all so well cleared, with the truck patch and the orchard and all that, we could send for mother at once. But now that father cannot work as heartily as he once did, it will be years before we can hope to have as good a place as that.”
“I should have your mother come, anyhow, if I were you.”
“Oh, I mean to have her come as soon as there is a chance for her to find company this far. I have sent her word. Our little cabin is small, to be sure, and with two families in it we shall be crowded, but we are going to add a lean-to, and I don’t doubt but that we can get along after a fashion.”
“I wish you would remember that I shall soon be ready to take one member of the family away to another home,” said Archie, pointedly. Agnes, for answer, gave a shrug of her shoulders and walked away. She did not care to bring up that question.