“Lie quietly, Girl,” whispered the Harvester. “You are wearing a living jewel, an ornament above price, on your hair. Maybe you can see it when it goes. There!”
“Oh I did!” she cried. “How I love it here! Before long may I lie in the dining-room window a while so I can see the water. I like the hill, but I love the lake more.”
“Now if you just would love me,” said the Harvester, “you would have all Medicine Woods in your heart.”
“Don't hurry me so!” said the Girl. “You gave me a year; and it's only a few weeks, and I've not been myself, and I'm not now. I mustn't make any mistake, and all I know for sure is that I want you most, and I can rest best with you, and I miss you every minute you are gone. I think that should satisfy you.”
“That would be enough for any reasonable man,” said the Harvester angrily. “Forgive me, Ruth, I have been cruel. I forgot how frail and weak you are. It is having Harmon here that makes me unnatural. It almost drives me to frenzy to know that he may take you from me.”
“Then send him away!”
“SEND HIM AWAY?”
“Yes, send him away! I am tired to death of his poetry, and seeing him spoon around. Send both of them away quickly!”
The Harvester gulped, blinked, and surreptitiously felt for her pulse.
“Oh, I've not developed fever again,” she said. “I'm all right. But it must be a fearful expense to have both of them here by the week, and I'm so tired of them, Granny says she can take care of me just as well, and the girl who helps her can cook. No one but you shall lift me, if I don't get my nose Out until I can walk alone Both of them are perfectly useless, and I'd much rather you'd send them away.”