“Oh, Abe!” she whispered.  “I had made up my mind that men were all bad but my father.  I was wrong.  I did not think of you.”

“Men are mostly good,” said Abe.  “But it’s very easy to misunderstand them.  In my view it’s quite likely that John McNamar is better than you think him.  I want you to be fair to John.  If you conclude that you can not be happy with him give me a chance.  I would do my best to bring back the joy of the old days.  Sometimes I think that I am going to do something worth while.  Sometimes I think that I can see my way far ahead and it looks very pleasant, and you, Ann, are always walking beside me in it.”

They proceeded in silence for a moment.  A great flock of wild pigeons darkened the sky above them and filled it with the whirr of their wings.  The young man and woman stopped to look up at them.

“They are going south,” said Abe.  “It’s a sign of bad weather.”

They stood talking for a little time.

“I’m glad they halted us for we have not far to go,” Abe remarked.  “Before we take another step I wish you could give me some hope to live on—­just a little straw of hope.”

“You are a wonderful man, Abe,” said Ann, touched by his appeal.  “My father says that you are going to be a great man.”

“I can not hold out any such hope to you,” Abe answered.  “I’m rather ignorant and badly in debt but I reckon that I can make a good living and give you a comfortable home.  Don’t you think, taking me just as I am, you could care for me a little?”

“Yes; sometimes I think that I could love you, Abe,” she answered.  “I do not love you yet but I may—­sometime.  I really want to love you.”

“That is all I can ask now,” said Abe as they went on.  “Do you hear from Bim Kelso?”

“I have not heard from her since June.”

“I wish you would write to her and tell her that I am thinking of going down to St. Louis and that I would like to go and see her.”

“I’ll write to her to-morrow,” said Ann.

They had a pleasant visit and while Ann was playing with the baby she seemed to have forgotten her troubles.  They stayed to supper, after which the whole family walked to the tavern with them, Joe and Betsey drawing the baby in their “bumble wagon,” which Samson had made for them.  When Ann began to show weariness, Abe gently lifted her in his arms and carried her.

That evening Mrs. Peter Lukins called upon Abe at Sam Hill’s store where he sat alone, before the fire, reading with two candles burning on the end of a dry goods box at his elbow.

There was an anxious look in her one eye as she accepted his invitation to sit down in the firelight.

“I wanted to see you private ’bout Lukins,” she began.  “There’s them that calls him Bony Lukins but I reckon he ain’t no bonier than the everidge run o’ men—­not a bit—­an’ if he was I don’t reckon his bones orto be throwed at him every time he’s spoke to that away.”