Flora was more interested in the first part
of Bart's speech than in the last.

"Oh, come on!" protested Bart, and he
picked her up in his arms and jumped her
toward the ceiling of the low shack as if she
were a little girl -- but then, to be sure, she
wasn't much more.

Of all the things Flora saw when the corn
was cut down, nothing interested her so much
as a low cottage, something like her own,
which lay away in the distance. She could
not guess how far it might be, because dis-
tances are deceiving out there, where the alti-
tude is high and the air is as clear as one of
those mystic balls of glass in which the sallow
mystics of India see the moving shadows of
the future.

She had not known there were neighbors
so near, and she wondered for several days
about them before she ventured to say any-
thing to Bart on the subject. Indeed, for
some reason which she did not attempt to ex-
plain to herself, she felt shy about broaching
the matter. Perhaps Bart did not want her
to know the people. The thought came to
her, as naughty thoughts will come, even to
the best of persons, that some handsome