“THE NEXT MOMENT SHE WAS LIFTED UPWARDS” Page 146
“Now,” he announced, “I guess you’ll find that a snug enough nest.”
She sank into it with a sense of physical satisfaction. The grass was soft and warm; it was scented with the aromatic odors of wild peppermint, and it yielded like a downy cushion beneath her limbs. Still, she was just a little uneasy in mind, for she fancied that she had seen a sudden sign of feeling in Wyllard’s face when he had held her for a moment on the ledge of the wagon. She glanced at him and was reassured. He was looking straight before him with unwavering eyes, and his face was set and quiet. Neither of them spoke until the team moved on. Then he turned to her.
“You won’t be jolted much,” he assured her. “They’ve been at it since four o’clock this morning.”
“That,” replied Agatha, “must mean that you rose at three.”
Wyllard smiled. “As a matter of fact, it was half-past two. There was no dew last night, and we started early. I’ve several extra teams this year, and there’s a good deal of hay to cut. Of course, we have to get it in the sloughs or any damp place where it’s long. We don’t sow grass, and we have no meadows like those there are in England.”
Agatha understood that he meant to talk about matters of no particular consequence, as he usually did. She had noticed a vein of poetic imagination in him, and his idea that she had been with him through the snow of the lonely ranges and the gloom of the great forests of the Pacific slope appealed to her. Since the day when he told her that he loved her he had spoken only of commonplace subjects. Sitting close beside him in the hay she decided to let him talk about his farm, while she listened half-absently.
“But you have a foreman who could see the teams turned out, haven’t you?” she asked, going back to the subject of his early rising.