"Including how many terms I'd gone to school?"
"Yes, I even told her that," she said.
"Well, what did she seem to think about it?" he asked.
"I don't know what she thought, she didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. It was a bare-handed fight with the wolf in those days. I'm sure I made her understand that," she said.
"Well, I'll undertake to make her understand this," he said. "Are you sure that Jennie Weeks is taking good care of you?"
"Jennie is well enough and is growing better each day, now be off to your courting, but if you love me, remember, and be careful," she said.
"Remember—one particular thing—you mean?" he asked.
She nodded, her lips closed.
"You bet I will!" he said. "All there is of me goes into this. Isn't she a wonder, Mother?"
Mrs. Jardine looked closely at the big man who was all the world to her, so like her in mentality, so like his father with his dark hair and eyes and big, well-rounded frame; looked at him with the eyes of love, then as he left her to seek the girl she had learned to love, she shut her eyes and frankly and earnestly asked the Lord to help her son to marry Kate Bates.