Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude where she had gone.
"By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"
"Yistady. I took her down to the Siding."
"When's she coming back?"
"Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks."
"I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude, gloomily.
Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina and her remarkable doings, which had set the whole neighborhood to wondering "what had come over the girl."
She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better, and had taken to going to the most fashionable church in town. She was as a woman transformed. Nothing was able to prevent her steady progression and bloom. She grew plumper and fairer, and became so much more attractive that the young Germans thickened round her, and one or two Yankee boys looked her way. Through it all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter and altogether serious daily advice, without once realizing that anything sentimental connected him with it all. He knew she liked him, and sometimes he felt a little annoyed by her attempts to please him, but that she was doing all that she did and ordering her whole life to please him never entered his self-sufficient head.
There wasn't much room left in that head for any one else except Lucindy, and his plans for winning her. Plan as he might, he saw no way of making more than the two dollars a day he was earning as a cream collector.
Things ran along thus from week to week till it was nearly time for Lucindy to return. Claude was having his top buggy repainted, and was preparing for a vigorous campaign when Lucindy should be at home again. He owned his team and wagon and the buggy—nothing more.