They walked on together, the children laughing and playing ahead.
"Well, upshot of it is, I sold out my share to Osgood for twenty thousand dollars."
She stopped, and stared at him. "Jim—Gordon Sanford!"
"Fact! I can prove it." He patted his breast pocket mysteriously. "Ten thousand right there."
"Gracious sakes alive! How dare you carry so much money?"
"I'm mighty glad o' the chance." He grinned.
They walked on almost in silence, with only a word now and then. She seemed to be thinking deeply, and he didn't want to disturb her. It was a delicious spring hour. The snow was all gone, even under the hedges. The roads were warm and brown. The red sun was flooding the valley with a misty, rich-colored light, and against the orange and gold of the sky the hills stood in Tyrian purple. Wagons were rattling along the road. Men on the farms in the edge of the village could be heard whistling at their work. A discordant jangle of a neighboring farmer's supper-bell announced that it was time "to turn out."
Sanford was almost as gay as a lover. He seemed to be on the point of regaining his old place in his wife's respect. Somehow the possession of the package of money in his pocket seemed to make him more worthy of her, to put him more on an equality with her.
As they reached the little one-story square cottage he sat down on the porch, where the red light fell warmly, and romped with the children, while his wife went in and took off her things. She "kept a girl" now, so that the work of getting supper did not devolve entirely upon her. She came out soon to call them all to the supper-table in the little kitchen back of the sitting-room.
The children were wild with delight to have "poppa" back, and the meal was the merriest they had had for a long time. The doors and windows were open, and the spring evening air came in, laden with the sweet, suggestive smell of bare ground. The alert chuckle of an occasional robin could be heard.