At last one day she said I might take the box. I was so glad I hardly
knew what to do. I ran round the house, and sat down with it on the back
steps. But when I opened the box all the cottons were taken out."
She sat for a while longer, till the Kaffer maid had finished churning, and
was carrying the butter toward the house. Then Em prepared to slip off the
table, but first she laid her little hand on Waldo's. He stopped his
planing and looked up.
"Gregory is going to the town tomorrow. He is going to give in our bans to
the minister; we are going to be married in three weeks."
Waldo lifted her very gently from the table. He did not congratulate her;
perhaps he thought of the empty box, but he kissed her forehead gravely.
She walked away toward the house, but stopped when she got half-way. "I
will bring you a glass of buttermilk when it is cool," she called out; and
soon her clear voice came ringing out through the back windows as she sang
the "Blue Water" to herself, and washed the butter.
Waldo did not wait till she returned. Perhaps he had at last really grown
weary of work; perhaps he felt the wagon-house chilly (for he had shuddered
two or three times), though this was hardly likely in that warm summer
weather; or, perhaps, and most probably, one of his old dreaming fits had
come upon him suddenly.
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