"Sally!"
"Yes, Sally! she's the youngest, and at that she's a little older'n I am. And there ain't no mother in that house, because their mother died just when Sally was a kiddie, and they're all mothers and fathers to her."
"William—is it——?"
"Now, hold on, Lucien; hold on. Don't bite on anything until you're sure you can swallow it. Say, she's a wonder, Sally is! There's been something wrong with her spine for about four years, and she can't walk, 'cept once in a while she kinder hobbles slow around the table. They have a big wheel chair for Sally, and always when it's fine they wheel her out on to the verandah, and there she sits for hours an' hours. You'd think she's have a grouch being the way she is, but, honest, Lucien, she's enough to make all the grouchers get a hunch to throw themselves off the earth, she's that chirpy. Laugh! she's got a laugh 'ud chase the blues outer anybody; but she's mighty sad too, sometimes, when she thinks no one ain't watchin' her. Sally's a wonder, Lucien—and she's got big brown eyes, and brown hair fallin' all around her face, and the sweetest mouth——"
Lucien had occasional flashes of originality, and struck in with one. "Sweetest—the sweetest——"
"Yes," said William, firmly, though he blushed slightly, "sweet. And if you're trying to be wise about me getting tangled up with the fair sex the way you think, cut it out, cut it out. You're on the wrong track, and the danger signal's set against you. But she's certainly a wonder. Sometimes I'd be two or three hours in the field with the boys, and maybe it ain't enough to keep a fellow's think tank humming, to try to learn a quarter of what they know about the soil, and what to do with it, and about the insects, and roots, and everything. Then if I'd get tired I'd go and sit on the porch by Sally, and we'd just talk, or perhaps we'd both have a book, and just sit there readin', and I'd get tired readin', and begin to think about things, and one day, when I'm doing that I turns sudden, and Sally's looking at me, and she says, 'Yes, it is a big world, Willie'—they all called me that—she says, 'and we're none of us nearly so im-port-ant as we like to think we are.' Gee! I almost swallowed me neck, for I was just thinking that; and she read my thoughts often like that, as easy as—— Oh, well; I told her all about my plans, and what I mean to be, and—and—I've got to get busy and write to her now. I promised to."
Lucien smiled slightly.
"Rub off the smile, you hero," said William, pleasantly, himself smiling too; "there's none of that love business going into my letters."