"I don't miss my arm any more," Rufus continued, playing with her thread. "I've learned to do without it. I never thought I should, but I have, with a little help from a lady friend. I never was bitter about it like some. When you come to think of it, Miss Jenny Wren, it's wonderful how Almighty God has given us two of a kind in most things—on the outside, anyway. As to the inside furniture, the doctors have shown us how to get along without most of that. If we'd been started out with one eye, one ear, one arm and one leg, where would we have been nowadays?"
"We've only one nose and one mouth," objected Jenny.
"And how would we have looked with two?" laughed Rufus. "But that's not to the point. The house is finished, Jenny Wren, and what would you think of buying a few second-hand boards and letting me make the cow-shed more comfortable for winter?"
This moment had to come. Jenny had been dreading it for days. There was a pause, then: "I'm going to sell the cow," she stammered.
Rufus looked surprised. "Are you troubled about the price of feed, or afraid the winter work will be too much for you? That's why I'd like to make a better place for her and patch up the piece of shed you have to walk through to get to her—after I leave. It's a wonderful season but it's the eighteenth of December and snow must be coming along soon."
There was another moment of silence, then Jenny spoke recklessly. "You see, Mr. Holt, we've gone on from one thing to another for three weeks, because the leaky roof ruined the house in so many ways, and there's never been a man to help, since father died. We've patched the flooring, put in new door-sills and weather-strips on the windows, papered the sitting-room and plastered the kitchen ceiling—and all the time I've known I was going too far. I paid you fifteen dollars the first week, but it wasn't half what you earned and you gave me back three for lunches. Then you wouldn't take the last two weeks' wages because I was buying bricks and lumber and you said we could settle up when the work was finished.... I can't let it run on, Mr. Holt, I can't! I'm not in want; I've something in the bank and my hayfield more than pays for my winter fuel; but I have to be careful, and the house is so nice and cozy now it would be self-indulgent to do more. I'd better sell the cow. You're as kind and generous as you can be, but you are a stranger after all, and I have no claim on you."
Rufus gave her a long, searching look.
"You honestly feel I'm a stranger, do you?"
"Well, I—I don't exactly feel that you are, I only know it. My mind tells me so."
"It's funny!" said Rufus. "Now—I feel like a partner, not a stranger."