In May, they finished and moved their few belongings into the odd little two-room house. True to instinct, Ichabod had built a fireplace, though looking in any direction until the earth met the sky, not a tree was visible; and Camilla had added a cozy reading corner, which soon developed into a sleeping corner,––out-of-door occupations in sun and wind being insurmountable obstacles to mental effort.
But what matter! One straggling little folio, the local newspaper, made its way into the corner each week––and that was all. They had cut themselves off from the world, deliberately, irrevocably. It was but natural that they should sleep. All dead things sleep!
Month after month slipped by, and the first ripple of local excitement and curiosity born of their advent subsided. Ichabod knew nothing of farming, but to learn was simple. It needed only that he watch what his neighbors were doing, and proceed to do likewise. He learned soon to hold a breaking-plough in the tough 144 prairie sod, and to swear mightily when it balked at an unusually tough root. As well, he came to know the oily feel of flax as he scattered it by hand over the brown breaking. Later he learned the smell of buckwheat blossoms, and the delicate green coloring of sod corn, greener by contrast with its dark background.
Nor was Camilla idle. The dresses she had brought with her, dainty creations of foreign make, soon gave way to domestic productions of gingham and print. In these, the long brown hands neatly gloved, she struggled with a tiny garden, becoming in ratio as passed the weeks, warmer, browner, and healthier.
“Are you happy?” asked Ichabod, one day, observing her thus amid the fruits of her hands.
Camilla hesitated. Catching her hand, Ichabod lifted her chin so that their eyes met.
“Tell me, are you happy?” he repeated.
Another pause, though her eyes did not falter.
“Happier than I ever thought to be.” She touched his sleeve tenderly. “But not completely so, for––” she was not looking at him 145 now,––“for I love you, and––and––I’m a woman.”
They said no more; and though Ichabod went back to his team, it was not to work. For many minutes he stood motionless, a new problem of right and wrong throbbing in his brain.