It was the evening of a long day in July when, very much to Mary's surprise, her husband took the handle of the cream separator from her. To the sad-hearted woman it seemed that the breach was at length beginning to heal, and that happiness would shortly return to their hearthside. Below the din of the separator she actually found herself humming an old love-song of the 'eighties.
But her happiness was of short duration. When the milk had been run through, and the noise of the whirling bowl no longer prevented conversation, Harris immediately got down to business.
"Allan and me will be leavin' for the West in a day or two," he said.
"I suppose you can get along all right for a few weeks until harvest.
Bill (the hired man) will be here."
In an instant she saw the motive behind his apparent kindness, and the hopes she had just entertained only deepened the flood of resentment which swept over them. But she answered quietly and without apparent emotion: "That's unfortunate, as I was planning for a little trip myself."
"You!" he exclaimed. "You plannin' a trip! Where in the world do you want to go?" Such a thing as Mary going on a trip, and, above all, unaccompanied by himself, was unheard of and unthinkable.
"Yes, I thought I would take a little trip," she continued. "I've been working here pretty hard for something over twenty-five years, and you may say I've never been off the place. A bit of a holiday shouldn't do me any harm."
"Where do you think of goin'?" he demanded, a sudden suspicion arising in his mind. "Goin' to visit Jim and Beulah?"
"I think you might at least be fair to Beulah," she retorted. "If you had read her letter, instead of putting it in the stove, you would have known better."
"I ain't interested in anythin' Beulah may have to say, and any other letters that fall into my hands will go in the same direction. And what's more, she's not goin' to have a visit from any member of this family at the present time. I'm goin' out West to take up land, and Allan's goin' with me. It ain't fair or reasonable for you to try to upset our plans by a notion of this kind."
"It isn't a notion, John, it's a resolve. If you are bound to take up more land, with more work and more worry, why go ahead, but remember it's your own undertaking. I helped to make one home in the wilderness, and one home's enough for me."