"'Cause I ain't; that's why."
"Why, don't y' wan' to go back there where the people have nice houses, an' where they's a good—"
"Well, I don't know enough; that's why. I ain't goin' back to no seminary to be laughed at 'cause I don't know beans."
"But you do," laughed Bert, with an attempt to lighten the gloom—"you know canned beans."
"They'd laff at me, I know, an' call me a little Norsk." She was ready to cry.
"I'll bet they won't, not when they see our new dress an' our new gold watch—dress jest the color o' crow's-foot grass, watch thirty carats fine. I'd laugh to see 'em callin' my babe names then!"
And so by bribing, coaxing, and lying they finally obtained her tearful consent. They might not have succeeded even then had it not been for a young lady in Boomtown who was going back to the same school, and who offered to take her in charge. But there was hardly a day that she did not fling herself down into a chair and cry out:
"I jest ain't goin'. I'm all right here, an' I don't see why you can't let me stay here. I ain't made no fuss. Seems as if you thought it was fun f'r me to go 'way off there where I don't know anythin' an' where I don't know anybody."
But having come to a conclusion, the men were relentless. They hired sewing-girls, and skirmished back and forth between Boomtown and the farm like mad. Their steady zeal made up for her moody and fitful enthusiasm. However, she grew more resigned to the idea as the days wore on toward the departure, though her fits of dark and unusual musing were alarming to Anson, who feared a desperate retreat at the last moment.
He took her over to see Miss Holt one day, but not before he had prepared the way.