THE END OF JUNE
It was June. On the farm the young corn shimmered in long, green rows. In the corners of fences and along the edges of the woods, wild roses were blooming.
Abe Lincoln and Ann had sent messages back and forth but he had seen her only once since the May party, until the month of June was drawing to a close, when he took time to go out to the farm for an all-night visit.
He found her apparently well and happy, though she was taking cough syrup.
"Ann caught cold at the May party," Mrs. Rutledge said. "It's nothing much, only we don't want her throat to get sore so she cannot sing."
After the early supper Ann and Abraham went out for a walk. "Don't let her stay out too long," Mrs. Rutledge counseled. "Night air and cough syrup don't get on well together."
To them both it was a strangely pleasant walk, for they were both working to the same end; and this night they talked about what the future had in store for them when they should live their lives together.
"By another June we will have our own home," he said. "I have never had a home. I had a mother with the sort of love without which there can never be a home. But it was not in her power to make our dwellin'-place much better than the homes mother animals provide. Our home will never be grand but there will be no other home like it in all the world."
"Then I can help you study, and you can help me. I will have to pry you away from your books, perhaps, and poke food into your mouth."
And so they laughed and planned and kept close to each other until he said, "Ann, you're not going your usual gait to-night. Are you tired?"