“No,” said Hale. “I'm going to wait on you.”
“For the last time,” she pleaded, and to please her he did sit down, and every time she came to his side with something he bent to kiss the hand that served him.
“You're nothing but a big, nice boy,” she said. Hale held out a lock of his hair near the temples and with one finger silently followed the track of wrinkles in his face.
“It's premature,” she said, “and I love every one of them.” And she stooped to kiss him on the hair. “And those are nothing but troubles. I'm going to smooth every one of them away.”
“If they're troubles, they'll go—now,” said Hale.
All the time they talked of what they would do with Lonesome Cove.
“Even if we do go away, we'll come back once a year,” said Hale.
“Yes,” nodded June, “once a year.”
“I'll tear down those mining shacks, float them down the river and sell them as lumber.”
“Yes.”