The lad laughed as though amused, but as he looked intently at the lovely girl before him, he became serious and exclaimed as though for the first time he had thought of considering it:
“Perhaps, after all, I might do worse. I simply will not go into the army. I should hate that life.”
Then, catching the girl’s hand, he led her down the rocks as he called gayly: “Come on, little Jenny Warner, let’s ask your grandfather if he will begin this very summer to teach me how to be a farmer.”
And so it was a few moments later, when Grandpa Si came from the barn with a pail brimming with foamy milk, that he was almost bumped into by a girl and boy who, hand in hand, were running joyfully from the other direction.
“Wall, I’ll be dod-blasted!” the old man exclaimed, “if it ain’t little Harry!”
Then he called: “Grandma Sue, come an’ see who’s here!”
The bright-eyed old woman appeared in the open door, fork in hand. The lad leaped up the porch steps and kissed her on a flushed, wrinkled cheek.
“Grandma Sue,” he asked merrily, “have you room for a starved beggar boy at your breakfast table?”
“Room, is it?” was the pleased response. “Thar’ll allays be that, sonny, whenever you’re wantin’ a bite to eat.”
Such a merry meal followed. No one could make pancakes better than Susan Warner, and when the first edge was taken from his appetite, Harold insisted on helping Jenny turn the cakes for the other two. He wondered what Gwynette would think and say, if she could see him, but for that he cared not at all. Then, when they were seated, the boy astonished the farmer by asking if he were willing to take him on that coming summer as a helper.