"Do you think I would ask a girl to go to a party if I did not like her?"
"Now, John dear, you are not going to bother me in that way. I want you to tell just how long you have liked me, you know, loved me, in a really truly way?"
It seemed to cost John a little effort to answer, for he loved silence, especially when he was put upon the witness stand. However, he answered at last, taking her face between his hands as he spoke, and kissing both pink cheeks:
"I think I have loved you, sweetheart, since we sang together with the morning stars and shouted in unison with our companions when the foundations of this earth were laid."
"But on this earth, John; what about this earth?"
"Well, I can hardly answer. If you were to ask me when I did not love you, I could tell you—never. Ever since I saw you, a tiny, silver-haired tot of a girl, I felt that you were apart and separate from everything human for me, and I loved you."
John, with his every-day clothes on, was out in the lot daily that fall, plowing and planting for his little wife. He said little. John never was a talker; but he proved by his constant labors that no unnecessary task should be put upon the slender hands of his wife. Wood, kindlings—why, Diantha used to laugh and say that John was getting in a supply to last five years. Gentle assistance also he often silently rendered in her many household tasks. She used to order him away, but he knew the feet must get weary, after a hard day's work; and Diantha had much to do, to spin, weave, color and prepare their clothes for the coming winter. Outside her door, the yard was packed, and wetted down, and swept, until Diantha declared she could trail her wedding dress over it without harm.
It was amusing to see him out at his work, driving his team across and around the lot; and then, when Diantha came out, as she very often did, singing as she came, he would stop and look over at her with a gleam of rapturous love in his eyes, while he would wait until she threw the dainty kiss she was sure to toss before she went inside the house. Sometimes he could not resist the spell, and tying up his team he would saunter after her, and once at the door, stand wiping his brow meditatively.
"John Stevens," she would cry, "what have you left your work for, and what do you want, sir?"
And then he would go up, and putting his hand under her chin, he would draw up her face to his own bent lips and kiss her saucy red lips, while he said sometimes, in answer to her mocking question, "I only want to look at my wife."