“I’m going away,” the boy said, in a rather mournful tone.

“I hate to have you go.  I just love to know you’re here, if I don’t see you.  Only I wish you was older and knew more.”

“Maybe I know more’n you think I do,” he answered.

“But you don’t know anything about my troubles,” said she, with a sigh.

“I don’t get the chance.”

There was half a moment of silence.  She ended it by saying: 

“Ann and I are going to the spelling school to-night.”

“Can I go with you?”

“Could you stand it to be talked to and scolded by a couple of girls till you didn’t care what happened to you?”

“Yes; I’ve got to be awful careless.”

“We’ll be all dressed up and ready at quarter of eight.  Come to the tavern.  I’m going to have supper with Ann.  She is just terribly happy.  John McNeil has told her that he loves her.  It’s a secret.  Don’t you tell.”

“I won’t.  Does she love him?”

“Devotedly; but she wouldn’t let him know it—­not yet.”

“No?”

“Course not.  She pretends she’s in love with somebody else.  It’s the best way.  I reckon he’ll be plum anxious before she owns up.  But she truly loves him.  She’d die for him.”

“Girls are awful curious—­nobody can tell what they mean,” said Harry.

“Sometimes they don’t know what they mean themselves.  Often I say something or do something and wonder and wonder what it means.”

She was looking off at the distant plain as she spoke.

“Sometimes I’m surprised to find out how much it means,” she added.  “I reckon every girl is a kind of a puzzle and some are very easy and some would give ye the headache.”

“Or the heartache.”

“Did you ever ride a horse sitting backwards—­when you’re going one way and looking another and you don’t know what’s coming?” she asked.

“What’s behind you is before you and the faster you go the more danger you’re in?” Harry laughed.

“Isn’t that the way we have to travel in this world whether we’re going to love or to mill?” the girl asked, with a sigh.  “We can not tell what is ahead.  We see only what is behind us.  It is very sad.”

Barry looked at Bim.  He saw the tragic truth of the words and suddenly her face was like them.  Unconsciously in the midst of her playful talk this thing had fallen.  He did not know quite what to make of it.

“I feel sad when I think of Abe,” said Harry.  “He don’t know what is ahead of him, I guess.  I heard Mrs. Traylor say that he was in love with Ann.”

“I reckon he is, but he don’t know how to show it.  You might as well ask me to play on a flute.  He’s never told her.  He just walks beside her to a party and talks about politics and poetry and tells funny stories.  I reckon he’s mighty good, but he don’t know how to love a girl.  Ann is afraid he’ll step on her, he’s so tall and awkward and wanderin’.  Did you ever see an elephant talking with a cricket?”