“Yes, I will,” said Adam.  “And it won’t be long, and the girl will be Milly York.”

“All right,” said Kate, gravely, “whenever the time comes, let me know about it.  Now see if you can find me something to eat till I lay off my hat and wash.  It was a long, hot ride, and I’m tired.  Since there’s nothing I can do, I wish I had stayed where I was.  No, I don’t, either!  I see joy coming over the hill for Nancy Ellen.”

“Why is joy coming to Nancy Ellen?” asked the boy, pausing an instant before he started to the kitchen.

“Oh, because she’s had such a very tough, uncomfortable time with life,” said Kate, “that in the very nature of things joy should come her way.”

The boy stood mystified until the expression on his face so amused Kate that she began laughing, then he understood.

“That’s why it’s coming,” said Kate; “and, here’s how it’s coming.  She is going to get rid of a bothersome worry that’s troubling her head —­ and she’s going to have a very splendid gift, but it’s a deep secret.”

“Then you’ll have to whisper it,” said Adam, going to her and holding a convenient ear.  Kate rested her hands on his shoulder a minute, as she leaned on him, her face buried in his crisp black hair.  Then she whispered the secret.

“Crickey, isn’t that grand!” cried the boy, backing away to stare at her.

“Yes, it is so grand I’m going to try it ourselves,” said Kate.  “We’ve a pretty snug balance in the bank, and I think it would be great fun evenings or when we want to go to town in a hurry and the horses are tired.”

Adam was slowly moving toward the kitchen, his face more of a study than before.

“Mother,” he said as he reached the door, “I be hanged if I know how to take you!  I thought you’d just raise Cain over what Polly has done; but you act so sane and sensible; someway it doesn’t seem so bad as it did, and I feel more sorry for Polly than like going back on her.  And are you truly in earnest about a car?”

“I’m going to think very seriously about it this winter, and I feel almost sure it will come true by early spring,” said Kate.  “But who said anything about ‘going back on Polly?’”

“Oh, Mrs. York and all the neighbours said that you’d never forgive her, and that she’d never darken your door again, and things like that until I was almost crazy,” answered Adam.

Kate smiled grimly.  “Adam,” she said, “I had seven years of that ‘darken you door’ business, myself.  It’s a mighty cold, hard proposition.  It’s a wonder the neighbours didn’t remember that.  Maybe they did, and thought I was so much of a Bates leopard that I couldn’t change my spots.  If they are watching me, they will find that I am not spotted; I’m sorry and humiliated over what Polly has done; but I’m not going to gnash my teeth, and tear my hair, and wail in public, or in private.  I’m trying to keep my real mean spot so deep it can’t be seen.  If ever I get my chance, Adam, you watch me pay back Mrs. Peters.  That is the size and location of my spot; but it’s far deeper than my skin.  Now go on and find me food, man, food!”