I am almost ashamed to say how soon they were married—­so soon that when Miss Susan went with her mother to Keokuk to buy a wedding-garment, she half expected to find, in every shop she entered, the elegant figure of Mr. Leon leaning over the counter.  But the dress was bought and made, and worn at wedding and in-fair and in a round of family visits among the Barringer and Golyer kin, and carefully laid away in lavender when the pair came back from their modest holiday and settled down to real life on Allen’s prosperous farm; and no word of Bertie Leon ever came to Mrs. Golyer to trouble her joy.  In her calm and busy life the very name faded from her tranquil mind.  These wholesome country hearts do not bleed long.  In that wide-awake country eyes are too useful to be wasted in weeping.  My dear Lothario Urban us, those peaches are very sound and delicious, but they will not keep for ever.  If you do not secure them to-day, they will go to some one else, and in no case, as the Autocrat hath said with authority, can you stand there “mellering ’em with your thumb.”

There was no happier home in the county, and few finer farms.  The good sense and industry of Golyer and the practical helpfulness of his wife found their full exercise in the care of his spreading fields and growing orchards.  The Warsaw merchants fought for his wheat, and his apples were known in St. Louis.  Mrs. Golyer, with that spice of romance which is hidden away in every woman’s heart, had taken a special fancy to the seedling apple tree at whose planting she had so intimately assisted.  Allen shared in this, as in all her whims, and tended and nursed it like a child.  In time he gave up the care of his orchard to other hands, but he reserved this seedling for his own especial coddling.  He spaded and mulched and pruned it, and guarded it in the winter from rodent rabbits and in summer from terebrant grubs.  It was not ungrateful.  It grew a noble tree, producing a rich and luscious fruit, with a deep scarlet satin coat, and a flesh tinged as delicately as a pink seashell.  The first peck of apples was given to Susie with great ceremony, and the next year the first bushel was carried to Colonel Blood, the Congressman.  He was loud in his admiration, as the autumn elections were coming on:  “Great Scott, Golyer!  I’d rather give my name to a horticultooral triumph like that there than be Senator.”

“You’ve got your wish, then, colonel,” said Golyer.  “Me and my wife have called that tree The Blood Seedling sence the day it was transplanted from your pastur’.”

It was the pride and envy of the neighborhood.  Several neighbors asked for scions and grafts, but could do nothing with them.

“Fact is,” said old Silas Withers, “those folks that expects to raise good fruit by begging graffs, and then layin’ abed and readin’ newspapers, will have a good time waitin’.  Elbow-grease is the secret of the Blood Seedlin’, ain’t it, Al?”