Then at intervals Jimmie would stop and take just and unswerving measure of what they had done. At the first, in building the finished story out of the materials which they both had furnished, Jimmie had tried to make Augusta sit in judgment with him, had tried to consult with her as to what should go in and what should be left out. But Augusta would have none of this office. Jimmie was trained in the craft, and he must take the responsibility of selection and rejection. That was the way she put it. And Jimmie answered:
"You're a bigger man than I am, Augusta. Without at least a howl, I couldn't let William Shakespeare—and he's had time to learn some things, if he's been reading the things the critics say about his work—but I couldn't let even him maul my stuff the way I do yours."
"Well, I wouldn't let William Shakespeare do it, either." And Jimmie answered:
So Augusta copied, faithfully and without comment or question, the story as Jimmie edited it.
In this time they were curiously detached and tolerant. They did not demand so much of each other. And, though neither of them would have admitted it, this was a relief. They were very far from being tired of each other. But, it is humanly impossible for two normal, independent willed people to live through the hours of every day and night for months in the exclusive society of each other without feeling a strain. Good nature, good sense, and even gentle, thoughtful love will fail sometime. And two people are, after all, just two human beings.
Now, when the mind of each of them was busy during waking hours with the doings of other people whom it was creating and trying to manage, Jimmie and Augusta each found that the other was delightfully easy to get along with. They came and went, worked or played, and Jimmie hunted and Augusta fished, when Jimmie wanted to hunt and when Augusta wanted to fish. Which arrangement they found to be immeasurably better, after all, than the one in which each had been laboriously trying to do only the things that the other wanted.
Jimmie had not forgotten that the problem of Donahue was before them. Augusta had spoken of it only that once, but he knew that she felt bound to sell the horse and that neither argument nor heart-break would deter her from what she conceived to be duty. He had, however, a hope—which he did not mention—that perhaps Augusta would not be able to sell Donahue, for any amount that would be worth considering, and that, finally, she would allow him to try to get some money out of scraps of stories. He was sure that he could hatch up some fairly good ones now. So he said nothing, and waited. For them, and for what they had needed, Donahue was the ideal horse. There was none to equal him. But as an article of commerce in the open and unprejudiced market Jimmie did not believe that Donahue would bring very much money. It was probable that most of the farmers in the hills had already more cattle and horses than they cared to feed through the winter. And it did not seem likely that any of them would pay a high price for the privilege of feeding Donahue through five or six months of idleness.
Of course, he underestimated Augusta's perseverance and business force.
On a gray October morning when there was already a threat of snow in the air Jimmie went rabbit hunting over the bowl of hills that encircled their little lake. He took no lunch, for he intended to be home before midday. But rabbits are not to be depended on in any weather. Besides, Jimmie followed a fox for two useless, scrambling hours. Therefore it was the middle of the short afternoon when Jimmie came home. The one big bare room which was the house they lived in, and which Augusta's warming, coloring personality alone had made into a home, was cold and dreary even after the brown bleakness of the hills. The fire must have been out for hours. Jimmie was tired and hungry, and he missed Augusta discontentedly.