Angella's face paled.
"So I am not like a woman, then?"
"I didn't mean that, Angel. You're more like a woman in your heart than anyone I ever knew, 'cept Mrs. Langdon, and I just wanted to make myself so that—so that no one would ever want to look at me again. Just 's if I was same as a man and——"
"And I suppose you think you've succeeded," said Angella dryly. "Never fear. It will take more than the cutting of your hair to keep men from you, Nettie Day. However, it's your own hair, and I suppose you meant all right. They say 'Hell is paved with good intentions.' But you needn't think that because I—was fool enough to—to—make a freak of myself, that I approve of you or anyone else doing it."
"I'm sorry, Angel. I'm awfully sorry. I—I want to be as much like you as I can be. I want to wear them men's overalls too and do——"
"As for the overalls, that's all right, they're sensible; but, look here, Nettie, don't let me catch you doing anything like that to disfigure yourself again, and don't you go slashing any more into your hair. It doesn't look bad now, but even you would look a fright if you had cut it as I did—right to the scalp."
"It's growing in now. And it looks—right pretty, Angel," said Nettie wistfully. "D'you know, you ain't nearly as ugly as you think you are," she added with girlish naïveté, which brought a chuckle from Angella, warming the baby's bottle at the stove.
They began to fence in mid-April. The ground was hard, and having no proper hole diggers they were at a still greater disadvantage. However, Angella said she did not want to waste any time on repairing fences, once the land was ready for the crop. Cyril's quarter was already fairly well fenced, but the dividing line between the two quarters had never been completed. Now that the two places were to be worked as one the line-fence had become unnecessary. By persistent labor upon their first task of the season, they achieved an inadequate protection for the proposed crop. The uneven line of barbed wire, set on unsteady posts, aroused the derisive condemnation of Dr. McDermott, who warned them that cattle would have no trouble in breaking through and that the two wires did not constitute a legal fence, three being the required number. Angella, colder and more unbending than ever in her attitude to the doctor, rejoined that "they would take their chances this year."
The herd law was in force, and it was against the law for cattle to be at large on the road or road allowances in that particular part of the country. The doctor grouchily warned them that that concerned stray cattle, but there was absolutely nothing to prevent a herd driven by riders from going through. Nothing, returned Angella indignantly, except the fact that reputable riders had a professional sense of honor, so far as other people's grain fields were concerned, and she knew none that would be likely to turn driven cattle into a grain field. Such things were not done in a country like Alberta. Besides, cattle were unlikely to be moved in the summer time, and by the fall, the harvest would be in, and the grain safe.
"Have it your way," returned the doctor. "But if you want to do a mon's work, you ought to do it in a mon's way." This gratuitous remark was received in the disdainful silence it deserved.