It depends on you! Nobody needn't know. All you need to do is not to force it on 'em … [With sudden passion.] What's at the bottom of it?—I'm crazy about you …
ROSE
Where's the woman or girl you're not crazy about!
STRECKMANN
Maybe it's so. I can't change things. A man like me who has to go the round o' all the estates in the country with his threshin' machine—he don't have worry because he's not talked about. I know best how it is with me. Before ever Flamm came—I'm not mentionin' August—I'd thrown an eye on you. An' nobody knows what it's cost me. [With iron stubbornness.] But the devil fetch me now! Come what may, Rosie! There's no more use tryin' to joke with me! I happened to come upon somethin' to-day!
ROSE
An' what is it?
STRECKMANN
You'll see soon enough.
MARTHEL, ROSE'S younger sister, comes skipping along the field-path. She is neatly dressed in her Sunday garments and is still pronouncedly child-like.