"I'm making a home," he would say, "for my 'Blessing.' How she leans upon me! If I were to die, what would become of her? She don't know enough to give lectures, like Miss Hopkins. Oh! if I could only mix her and Jemima together. Yet she's pretty handy at the needle, and since she's overhauled my things I ain't lost a button. And yet my suspenders, darn 'em, do give awful jerks once in a while."
One morning, while he was thus silently praising Mary's skill in the art of sewing, he stopped, gave a groan, then, letting go the handle of the plough, "Wrong!" he exclaimed. "There goes one! Rip! whew!" and, as he spoke, he grabbed a button out of the furrow. For more than a minute the youth examined it thoughtfully, turned it over and over, put it to his eye; then, with a grin, "No," he said, "Mary didn't sew this on; the thread sticking to it ain't the kind she uses. Ah! Jemima Hopkins! Jemima Hopkins! 'tis some of your work. Yes, I remember; 'twas just afore you started off lecturing, and when your head was full of big words. O Jemima Hopkins!"
And so the summer passed away. The corn came up magnificently, and when it was in all its glory, with the west wind shaking the tassels, Putnam would call Mary out to admire it. "It looks," he would say, "like a regiment of militia on parade." The pumpkin-seed which he had planted was now well above ground, and creeping slowly but steadily round and round the shamrock. Once the girl was tempted to pull the vine up, but, on reflection, it occurred to her that she had better not. And she was right; for under its broad leaves her little plant found shelter from the scorching rays of the sun; and when the thunder-storms burst over the prairie, the shamrock would have been crushed by the great rain-drops, which fell thicker and faster than ever she had known them fall in Ireland, but for the same kindly protector.
One evening, toward the middle of September, Nat came home from work at an earlier hour than usual. He appeared troubled; there was evidently something on his mind; and, when the girl asked what was the matter, he scratched his head, devoured her a moment with his sharp, gray eyes, then, turning on his heel, walked off to a log near the door. There he seated himself, and, after musing awhile, beckoned her to approach.
The young woman obeyed, not, however, without some misgiving. "Mr. Putnam," she thought, "has got tired of living so long in one place, and is anxious to move further west. Alas!"
In another moment she was seated near him and gazing anxiously in his face. He returned her look only for an instant, then coughed, and, rolling up his eyes, "'Tis a solemn thing to do," he murmured. "But I can't help it, and wouldn't if I could. I've felt it coming over me ever since the day she persuaded me to write home to father. Jemima Hopkins would grab at me like a sunfish at a worm in April if I gave her a chance; but this girl is so innocent-like that really I don't know how to begin. And then her very dependence on me, the solitude of this spot, makes her kind of sacred, and I dread lest even words of purest love might give her offence."
"Well, Mr. Putnam," said Mary, interrupting his soliloquy, "you're not going to move away? Don't make my shamrock travel any further. Speak! Oh! I feel so anxious."
At these words, Nat cleared his throat, cracked his knuckles, then, in a voice singularly agitated for one of his temperament, "Mary," he began, "I am never going to move from this spot. You are fond of it, and that's enough." At this unexpected announcement the girl clapped her hands. "But," he went on, "I am not contented; there is yet something wanting to make me perfectly happy."
"And, pray, what is it, sir? I know I am very green, but tell me if the fault be mine; tell me, and I promise to do all I can to please you."
"Well," he pursued, raising his hand and pointing at the pumpkin-vine which circled round the shamrock, "do you see yonder plant almost hiding, and at the same time protecting, the smaller one?"