So time passed along pretty glib till the frame-house was done, and then we had to move in, and to get the things from Cumberton, and begin to feel as though we were settled for good and all; and after the newness had gone off, and the clearin’ got so fur that I couldn’t see Russell no more, and nobody to look at, if I was never so lonesome, then come a pretty hard spell.  Everything about the house was real handy, so’t I’d get my work cleared away, and set down to sew early; and them long summer-days that was still and hot, I’d set, and set, never hearin’ nothin’ but the clock go “tick, tick, tick,” (never “tack,” for a change,) and every now’n’then a great crash and roar in the woods where he was choppin’, that I knew was a tree; and I worked myself up dreadfully when there was a longer spell ’n common come betwixt the crashes, lest that Russell might ‘a’ been ketched under the one that fell.  And settin’ so, and worryin’ a good deal, day in and day out, kinder broodin’ over my troubles, and never thinkin’ about anybody but myself, I got to be of the idee that I was the worst-off creature goin’.  If I’d have stopped to think about Russell, may-be I should have had some sort of pity for him, for he was jest as lonesome as I, and I wasn’t no kind of comfort to come home to,—­’most always cryin’, or jest a-goin’ to.

So the summer went along till ’twas nigh on to winter, and I wa’n’t in no better sperrits.  And now I wa’n’t real well, and I pined for mother, and I pined for Major, and I’d have given all the honey and buckwheat in Indiana for a loaf of mother’s dry rye-bread and a drink of spring-water.  And finally I got so miserable, I wished I wa’n’t never married,—­and I’d have wished I was dead, if ‘twa’n’t for bein’ doubtful where I’d go to, if I was.  And worst of all, one day I got so worked up I told Russell all that.  I declare, he turned as white as a turnip.  I see I’d hurt him, and I’d have got over it in a minute and told him so,—­only he up with his axe and walked out of the door, and never come home till night, and then I was too stubborn to speak to him.

Well, things got worse, ‘n’ one day I was sewin’ some things and cryin’ over ’em, when I heard a team come along by, and, before I could get to the door, Russell come in, all red for joy, and says,—­

“Who do you want to see most, Anny?”

Somehow the question kind of upset me;—­I got choked, and then I bu’st out a-cryin’.

“Oh, mother and Major!” says I; and I hadn’t more’n spoke the word before mother had both her good strong arms round me, and Major’s real cheery face was a-lookin’ up at me from the little pine cricket, where she’d sot down as nateral as life.  Well, I was glad, and so was Russell, and the house seemed as shiny as a hang-bird’s-nest, and by-and-by the baby came;—­but I had mother.

’Twas ’long about in March when I was sick, and by the end of April I was well, and so’s to be stirrin’ round again.  And mother and Major begun to talk about goin’ home; and I declare, my heart was up in my mouth every time they spoke on’t, and I begun to be miserable ag’in.  One day I was settin’ beside of mother; Major was out in the garden, fixin’ up things, and settin’ out a lot of blows she’d got in the woods, and singin’ away, and says I to mother,—­