For days after that she was under a strain which she realized would break her if it was not relieved.  It appeared to be solely her fear of Dorn’s derangement.  She was with him almost all the daylight hours, attending him, watching him sleep, talking a little to him now and then, seeing with joy his gradual improvement, feeling each day the slow lifting of the shadow over him, and yet every minute of every hour she waited in dread for the return of Dorn’s madness.  It did not come.  If it recurred at night she never was told.  Then after a week a more pronounced change for the better in Dorn’s condition marked a lessening of the strain upon Lenore.  A little later it was deemed safe to dismiss the nurse.  Lenore dreaded the first night vigil.  She lay upon a couch in Dorn’s room and never closed her eyes.  But he slept, and his slumber appeared sound at times, and then restless, given over to dreams.  He talked incoherently, and moaned; and once appeared to be drifting into a nightmare, when Lenore awakened him.  Next day he sat up and said he was hungry.  Thereafter Lenore began to lose her dread.

* * * * *

“Well, son, let’s talk wheat,” said Anderson, cheerily, one beautiful June morning, as he entered Dorn’s room.

“Wheat!” sighed Dorn, with a pathetic glance at his empty sleeve.  “How can I even do a man’s work again in the fields?”

Lenore smiled bravely at him.  “You will sow more wheat than ever, and harvest more, too.”

“I should smile,” corroborated Anderson.

“But how?  I’ve only one arm,” said Dorn.

“Kurt, you hug me better with that one arm than you ever did with two arms.” replied Lenore, in sublime assurance.

“Son, you lose that argument,” roared Anderson.  “Me an’ Lenore stand pat.  You’ll sow more an’ better wheat than ever—­than any other man in the Northwest.  Get my hunch?...  Well, I’ll tell you later....  Now see here, let me declare myself about you.  I seen it worries you more an’ more, now you’re gettin’ well.  You miss that good arm, an’ you feel the pain of bullets that still lodge somewhere’s in you, an’ you think you’ll be a cripple always.  Look things in the face square.  Sure, compared to what you once was, you’ll be a cripple.  But Kurt Dorn weighin’ one hundred an’ ninety let loose on a bunch of Huns was some man!  My Gawd!...  Forget that, an’ forget that you’ll never chop a cord of wood again in a day.  Look at facts like me an’ Lenore.  We gave you up.  An’ here you’re with us, comin’ along fine, an’ you’ll be able to do hard work some day, if you’re crazy about it.  Just think how good that is for Lenore, an’ me, too....  Now listen to this.”  Anderson unfolded a newspaper and began to read: