“Now, listen, Harlan. We’ve got a house, with more than enough furniture to make it comfortable, though it’s not the kind of furniture either of us particularly like. Instead of buying a typewriter, we’ll rent one for three or four dollars a month until we have enough money to buy one. And I’m going to have a cow and some chickens and a garden, and I’m going to sell milk and butter and cream and fresh eggs and vegetables and chickens and fruit to the sanitarium, and——”
“The sanitarium people must have plenty of those things.”
“But not the kind I’m going to raise, nor put up as I’m going to put it up, and we’ll be raising most of our own living besides. You can write when you feel like it, and be helping me when you don’t feel like it, and before we know it, we’ll be rich. Oh, Harlan, I feel like Eve all alone in the Garden with Adam!”
The prospect fired his imagination, for, in common with most men, a chicken-ranch had appealed strongly to Harlan ever since he could remember.
“Well,” he began, slowly, in the tone which was always a signal of surrender.
“Won’t it be lovely,” she cried ecstatically, “to have our own bossy cow mooing in the barn, and our own chickens for Sunday dinner, and our own milk, and butter, and cream? And I’ll drive the vegetable waggon and you can take the things in——”
“I guess not,” interrupted Harlan, firmly. “If you’re going to do that sort of thing, you’ll have people to do the work when I can’t help you. The idea of my wife driving a vegetable cart!”
“All right,” answered Dorothy, submissively, wise enough to let small points settle themselves and have her own way in things that really mattered. “I’ve not forgotten that I promised to obey you.”
A gratified smile spread over Harlan’s smooth, boyish face, and, half-fearfully, she reached into her sleeve for a handkerchief which she had hitherto carefully concealed.
“That’s not all,” she smiled. “Look!”