"Oh, I guess she won't have any to do—at least, that's what your Uncle Joe says," replied his grandmother with a haughty toss of her head. "That's what he's got you down on the farm for."
"Oh," said Bob, dryly, "and so that's why he was so extremely anxious for me to come."
"Yes, that's why, Bob—you might as well know sooner as later, that you're going to be a pretty busy boy this summer. Your Uncle Joe is so big and strong that he never gets tired and doesn't know when to quit, and he expects every one else to work just as hard and as long as he does. Besides," she added, "I don't think he'll want HIS wife to spoil her nice white hands."
"What's her name?" inquired Bob, not in the least worried by his grandmother's gloomy predictions.
"Betsy Atwood—but your uncle calls her Bettie," replied his grandmother.
"Aunt Bettie," repeated Bob. "A pretty name!"
"H'm!" sniffed his grandmother. "I'm certainly glad you like it, and I hope you'll like her as well—it will help to make the work seem easier to you."
"Why, there's grandfather and Uncle Joe now," said Bob a moment later, as he glanced through the kitchen window toward the barn, and catching up his cap he rushed out to greet them.
Joe Williams was a typical farmer, tall, deep-chested and straight as an arrow. He stood six feet in his stockings and weighed two hundred and ten pounds, and could toss a barrel of salt on the tailboard of a wagon without losing his happy smile. He was twenty-seven years old, and there was not a farmer in the county who could beat him at feats of strength or endurance, and few indeed who could keep pace with him. He had black hair and blue eyes. Books had little attraction for him— he loved to be in the open, for which his great size and strength seemed to fit him. He had received little education beyond the country school, unless could be counted the two years he had spent working on farms in the great West, where he probably would have stayed had it not been for the brown eyes of Bettie Atwood and an offer from his father, now old and failing in health, to sell him the old place at his own terms.
"Hello, Bob!" he called as his nephew came forward, "sorry we missed you. The bus driver said you'd left on foot for the farm when you didn't see us around. How've you been lately?"