"Never mind about dates, but tell me why you didn't use the rifle instead of the lariat? What did you take it for?"
"I took it for your peace of mind. I didn't use it for several good and substantial and sentimental reasons. To reverse them, this last year I have grown to understand your horror of killing things. We have done very well without sacrificing any of our dependents; in fact, it would seem like murder to slaughter the animals about us. And it's such a little world it seems a pity to kill off any of its inhabitants. To tell the truth, I hope the bear got away all right. This is maudlin, I know, but I don't want my hand first to bring death on all there is left of earth. Incidentally,—there are no cartridges."
He stopped the horses, while Robin readjusted the kids to make them more comfortable, and took the lame one in her arms, then they moved on.
Presently she said, "I am so glad of these kids!"
There was so much enthusiasm in her voice that Adam laughed and asked why, and she answered:—
"Like you, I have sound and sentimental reasons. The sound one is that we shall need their fleece unless,—why, goodness gracious, Adam, there is a baking-powder can of flax in the dresser, and I never thought till this moment that we can plant it."
"True," answered Adam, "but given flax or fleece, what would you do with it?"
"Spin it," she answered sententiously. "Of course you think I can't, but it happens that I once lived, when I was a little girl, very near to an old woman. I don't refer to her age, but her ideas. She carded and spun and wove and dyed all the family clothing. She made her own soap and wouldn't have a stove in the house. She had eight children, too, and they all of them turned out badly. I used to go there off and on; I think she looked on me as a kind of sinful amusement. Anyhow, she told me the world was going to ruin, and the women were poor 'doless' creatures, who couldn't spin a hank of yarn, or gin a pound of cotton, or heel a sock. She shook her head over me when she found I couldn't knit, but she set a garter for me at once, and during the seven or eight years that I went by her door on my way to school she taught me all those marvelous accomplishments. I daresay I have forgotten them."
"What are the sentimental reasons?" asked Adam.
She looked at the kid as it nestled against her shoulder.