The Doctor [4]
"Oh, pshaw! I ran away from their crowd, but that's nothing."
"And I suppose you have not an idea how nice you look as you go swinging along?"
"Do I? That's the only time then."
"Oh, now you're fishing, and I'm not going to bite. Where did you learn the scythe?"
"Where? Right here where we had to, Dick and I. By the way, he's coming home to-day." He glanced at her face quickly as he said this, but her face showed only a frank pleasure.
"To-day? Good. Won't your mother be glad?"
"Yes. And some other people, too," said Barney.
"And who, particularly?"
A sudden shyness seemed to seize the young man, but recovering himself, "Well, I guess I will, myself, a little. This is the first time he has ever been away. We never slept a night apart from each other as long as I can mind till he went to college last year. He used to put his arm just round me here," touching his breast. "I'll tell you the first nights after he went I used to feel for him in the dark and be sick to find the place empty."
"Well," said the girl doubtfully, "I hope he won't be different. College does make a difference, you know."
"Different! Dick! He'd better not. I'll thrash the daylights out of him. But he won't be different. Not to us, nor," he added shyly, "to you."
"Oh, to me?" She laughed lightly. "He had better not try any airs with me."
"What would you do?" inquired Barney. "You couldn't take it out of his hide."
"Oh, I'd fix him. I'd take him down," she replied with a knowing shake of her head.
"Poor Dick! He's in for a hard time," replied Barney. "But nothing can change Dick. And I am awful glad he's coming to-day, in time for the raising, too."
"The raising? Oh, yes. The McLeods'. Yes, I remember. And," regretfully, "a big supper and a big spree afterwards in the new barn."
"Are not you going?" inquired Barney.
"I don't know. They want me to go to help, but I don't think I'll go. I don't think father would like me to go, and,"--a pause-- "anyway, I don't think I can get away."
"Oh, pshaw! Get Old Nancy in. She can take care of the children for once. You would like the raising. It's great fun."
"Oh! wouldn't I, though? It's fine to see them racing. They get so wild and yell so."
"Well, come on then. You must come. They'll all be disappointed, if you don't. And Dick is coming that way, too. Alec Murray is to bring him on his way home from town." Again Barney glanced keenly at her face, but he saw only puzzled uncertainty there.
"Well, I don't know. We'll see. At any rate, I must go now."
"Wait," cried Barney, "I'll go with you. We're having dinner early to-day." He hung up the scythe in the thorn tree and threw the stone at the foot.
"I wish you would promise to come," he said earnestly.
"Do you, really?" The blue eyes turned full upon him.
"Of course I do. It will be lots better fun if you are there." The frank, boyish honesty of his tone seemed to disappoint the blue eyes. Together in silence they set off down the lane.
"Well," she said, resuming their conversation, "I don't think I can go, but I'll see. You'll be playing for the dancing, I suppose?"
"No. I won't play if Dan is around, and I guess he'll be there. I may spell him a little perhaps."
"Then you'll be dancing yourself. You're great at that, I know."
"Me? Not much. It's Dick. Oh, he's a dandy! He's a bird! You ought to see him! I'll make him do the Highland Fling."
"Oh, Dick, Dick!" she cried impatiently, "everything is Dick with you."
Barney glanced at her, and after a moment's pause said, "Yes. I guess you're right. Everything is pretty much Dick with me. Next to my mother, Dick is the finest in all the world."
At the crest of the hill they stood looking silently upon the scene spread out before them.
"There," said Barney, "if I live to be a hundred years, I can't forget that," and he waved his hand over the valley. Then he continued, "I tell you what, with the moon just over the pond there making a track of light across the