"No, for grandfather. He caught cold staying in the barn with the red cow."
"Well, I'm glad 'taint for you—I don't like a weak-chested woman."
She looked up smiling as they passed the store into the sunken road which led in the direction of Solomon Hatch's cottage.
"I did see a speck of red through the crack," he confessed after a minute, as if he were unburdening his conscience of a crime.
"You mean you saw my cap or jacket—or maybe my gloves?"
"It was yo' cap, an' so I came in. I hope you have no particular objection?" His face had flushed to a violent crimson and in his throat his Adam's apple worked rapidly up and down between the high points of his collar. "I mean," he stammered presently, "that I wouldn't have gone in if I hadn't seen that bit of red through the do'. I suppose I had better tell you, that I've been thinking a great deal about you in the evening when my day's work is over."
"I'm glad I don't interfere with your farming."
"That would be a pity, wouldn't it? Do you ever think of me, I wonder, at the same time?" he inquired sentimentally.
"I can't tell because I don't know just what that time is, you see."
"Well, along after supper generally—particularly if ma has made buckwheat cakes an' I've eaten a hearty meal an' feel kind of cosy an' comfortable when I set down by the fire an' there's nothin' special to do."