Caleb jumped up with alacrity.  “I dunno but I shall.  I guess you’re right.  I wa’n’t goin’ to set here but a minute,” he answered, eagerly.  Then he went over to Barney again, and stood near watching him.  Barney’s hoe clinked on a stone, and he stooped and picked it out of the loam, and threw it away.  “There’s a good many stone in this field,” said the old man.

“There’s some.”

“It was a heap of work clearin’ of it in the first place.  You wa’n’t more’n two year old when I cleared it.  My brother Simeon helped me.  It was five year before he got the fever an’ died.”  Caleb looked at his son with anxious pleading which was out of proportion to his words, and seemed to apply to something behind them in his own mind.

Barney worked on silently.

“I don’t believe but what—­if you was—­to go over there—­you could get her back again now, away from that Payne fellar,” Caleb blurted out, suddenly; then he shrank back as if from an anticipated blow.

Barney threw a hoeful of earth high in air and faced his father.

“Once for all, father,” said he, “I don’t want to hear another word about this.”

“I shouldn’t have said nothin’, Barney, but I kinder thought—­”

“I don’t care what you thought.  Keep your thoughts to yourself.”

“I know she allers thought a good deal of you, an’—­”

“I don’t want another word out of your mouth about it, father.”

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to say nothin’ about it if you don’t want me to, Barney; but you know how mother feels, an’—­ Well, I ain’t goin’ to say no more.”

Caleb passed his hand across his forehead, and set off across the field.  Just before he was out of hearing, Barney hailed him.

“Do you feel better’n you did, father?” said he.

“What say, Barney?”

“Do you feel better’n you did this morning?”

“Yes, I feel some better, Barney—­some considerable better.”  Caleb started to go back to Barney; then he paused and stood irresolute, smiling towards him.  “I feel considerable better,” he called again; “my head ain’t nigh so dizzy as ’twas.”

“You’d better go home, father, and lay down, and see if you can’t get a nap,” called Barney.

“Yes, I guess I will; I guess ’twould be a good plan,” returned the old man, in a pleased voice.  And he went on, clambered clumsily over a stone-wall, disappeared behind some trees, reappeared in the open, then disappeared finally over the slope of the hilly field.

It was just five o’clock in the afternoon.  Presently a woman came hurrying across the field, with some needle-work gathered up in her arms.  She had been spending the afternoon at a neighbor’s with her sewing, and was now hastening home to get supper for her husband.  She was a pretty woman, and she had not been married long.  She nodded to Barney as she hurried past him, holding up her gay-flowered calico skirt tidily.  Her smooth fair hair shone like satin in the sun; she wore a little blue kerchief tied over her head, and it slipped back as she ran against the wind.  She did not speak to Barney nor smile; he thought her handsome face looked severely at him.  She had always known him, although she had not been one of his mates; she was somewhat older.