What can he mean? Zeke Watkins wasn't a bit
afraid of me. As mother said, he was a little forward, and I was
fool enough to take him at his own valuation. Afraid of me! How he
stood with his cap off. Do men ever love so? Is there a kind of
reverence in some men's love? How absurd that a great strong,
brave man, ready to face cannons, can bow down to such a little--"
Her fragmentary exclamations ended in a peal of laughter, but
tears dimmed her blue eyes.
Susie did visit Mrs. Jarvis, and although the reticent woman said
little about her son, what she did say meant volumes to the girl
who now had the right clew in interpreting his action and
character. She too was reticent. New England girls rarely gushed
in those days, so no one knew she was beginning to understand. Her
eyes, experienced in country work, were quick, and her mind
active. "It looks as if a giant had been wrestling with this stony
farm," she muttered.
Zeb received no ovations on his lonely tramp to the lines, and the
vision of Susie Rolliffe waving her hand from the gateway would
have blinded him to all the bright and admiring eyes in the world.
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