“Wait till the rye has been cut. Did you say Silas wanted us to cut his too?” John Hunter asked.
“Yes. He stopped me as I drove over this morning. The boys will lay the early corn by to-day; we can get the binder out to-morrow and see that it is ready by the day after. We might have been through with the corn to-day, but I’ve been lazy of late. I knocked off and rested and read most of the hot part of yesterday afternoon,” Hugh replied slowly. He wished in his heart that he could tell all.
“That’s the thing to do. I’m not going to have you going down to Mitchell County while it’s so hot. You’ll lay around the house and read, that’s what You’ll do, and I’ll run this farm for a while.”
The thought of that took Hugh Noland’s breath. That was what he was running away from, but he could think of no reason but his health, and dropped the subject to get away from it.
John Hunter asked questions about every feature of the farm work, and as he asked watched Hugh’s face, looking anxiously for signs of breaking health. Under no conditions would he let Hugh get sick. Hugh had been the happiest circumstance of this farming experience. There was a discouraged note in Hugh’s voice that John did not like.
“Did you see Morgan to-day?” he asked after he had had all the farm work explained to him.
“Oh, now, don’t you get to worrying because I happen to mention my health. Yes, I saw Morgan, and he agreed with me that the other place would be better for me. I can run that and you can run this, and with care we ought to make some money pretty soon.”
“But that takes you away from us and—and we want you here!” John exclaimed with such fervour that Hugh winced under it.
Hugh smiled so sadly back at the eager, boyish face turned to his that John was more than ever sure he was ill. His hand shot out to him with an almost womanish sympathy.
“We’ll see to it that you’re kept busy where you belong, and the work won’t wear you out either, my boy,” he said.