“The drought is something frightful,” he said to Lydia one afternoon in late August, wiping the sweat and dust from his face.  “This is the ninth week without rain.  The corn is ruined.  I never knew anything like this and Dad says he hasn’t either.”

“Our garden died weeks ago,” said Lydia, listlessly.

Billy looked at her keenly.  “Are you feeling any more cheerful, Lyd?”

Lydia turned her gaze from the burning brown meadows to Billy’s tanned, rugged face.

“I shall always have a gap in my life, where he went out,” she said, slowly.  “I shall never get over missing him.  Oh, he was so dear to me!  And yet, Billy, it isn’t at all like little Patience’s death.  He didn’t depend on me and I didn’t live with him so that everything doesn’t cry his absence to me.  And I’ve got more resources than I had then—­”

She laid her hand on the open book in her lap.

“What’re you reading?” asked Billy.

“Emerson—­Compensation.  Listen, Billy—­’We cannot part with our friends.  We cannot let our angels go.  We do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in.’

“And so,” Lydia’s voice trembled, but she went on bravely, “I’m trying to understand—­trying to see how I can make something good come out of his poor lost life.  Somehow I feel as if that were my job.  And—­and the idea helps me.  Oh, my dear John Levine!”

Billy cleared his throat.  “Let’s see that passage, Lyd.”  He took the book and read on:  “’The death of a dear friend—­wife, lover, brother—­terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth that was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation or style of living and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.’”

The two young people sat staring at the distant hills.

“Don’t you see,” Lydia burst out, “that I’ve got to do something, be something, to make all the loss and trouble of my life worth while?”

“I understand,” answered Billy.  “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not quite sure, yet,” replied Lydia, “but I’ll tell you as soon as I’ve made up my mind.  Billy, ask your father to come over this evening.  Dad is so desperately blue.”

Billy rose to go.  “One thing I will tell you, Billy,” Lydia went on, “I’m going to take the short dairy course this winter, besides my other work.”

Billy looked at the sweet, resolute face curiously, then he chuckled.

“Whenever you deign to unravel the workings of the mystery you call your mind, I’ll be crazy to listen,” he said.

Early in September, John Levine’s will was found.  He had left his entire property, unconditionally, to Lydia.

Amos, at first, was frantic with delight.  Lydia was appalled.

“All my life,” she half sobbed to her father, “I’ve been fighting to get away from Indian lands.  And Mr. Levine knew how I felt.  Oh, how could he do this to me!”