And shortly after dinner the farmer came up the road with the carriage. The axle had been mended and the horses rested. We all shook hands with Ike and Annie. I was to go my way and the other guests were to pass out of our little world.
Annie held the young girl’s hand for a moment.
“My dear, I hope you will soon be back in the city among your friends, where you will not be so lonely. It must be hard for you here.”
The girl hesitated a moment and then put her hand on her husband’s shoulder.
“John, would it mean very much to you if we went right back to the camp so you could finish your business?”
“Yes, it would—but I am afraid——”
“Then we will not go home yet, but we will go back until you are through. I have had a beautiful Thanksgiving. I would rather stay in the woods.”
And so they turned in their tracks and went back through the swamp. The night before she said she should always hate the place where the accident had made Ike Sawyer’s hotel a necessity. Now as she passed it she smiled and gave her husband a pinch—a trick she must have learned from Annie. And so they went on through the sunny afternoon of the “thankfullest day of their lives.” They were thinking of the working force at the “Farmers’ Rest”—the feet and the hands!
And the thought in their minds framed itself over and over into words: