Flora and Emma were tongue-tied by the stress of their emotions. They could only gaze at their guest with tear-dimmed eyes. But Mrs. Starkley went close to him and put a hand on each of his drooped shoulders.
"Of course, my dear boy," she said. "You are only a boy, Jim, a year or two younger than Henry, I think. Trust us to help you."
During dinner they talked about the country, the war, the weather and the stock—about almost everything but Jim Hammond's affairs.
"What do you want me to do this afternoon?" asked Jim when the meal was over. "I don't know much about farm work, but I can use an axe and can handle horses."
"I was ploughing this morning; and this may be our last day before the frost sets in hard," said Mr. Starkley. "What about hitching Peter's mares to a second plow?"
"Suit me fine," said Jim.
It was a still, bright October afternoon, with a glow in the sunshine, a smell of fern and leaf in the air and a veil of blue mist on the farther hills. Frosts had nipped the surface of things lightly a score of times but had not yet struck deep. Jim Hammond, in a pair of Peter's long-legged boots, guided a long plough behind Peter's black and sorrel mares. The mares pulled steadily, and the bright plough cut smoothly through the sod of the old meadow. Over against the fir woods on the far side of the meadow John Starkley went back and forth behind his grays.
Jim rested frequently at the end of a furrow, for he was not in the pink of condition. He noticed, for the first time in his life, the faint perfume of the turned loam and torn grass roots. He liked it. His furrows, a little uneven at first, became straighter and more even until they were soon almost perfect.
As the red sun was sinking toward the western forests, Emma appeared, climbing over the rail fence from a grove of young red maples. She carried something under one arm. She waved a hand to her father but came straight to Jim. He stopped the mares midway the furrow.
"I made these gingernuts myself," said Emma, holding out an uncovered tin box to him. "See, they are still hot. Have some."