"I see now that's all the more reason I should come, for if it hadn't been for
you, I'd have been in bitter trouble myself. We've been worse than heathen,
standin' off and talking against you. Oh, I've had a lesson I won't forget!
Well, I must hurry home, for I left Timothy and Lemuel in a dreadful state."

Seeing the farmer in the barn as she was passing, she rushed to him. "You've
got to shake hands with me, Mr. Holcroft. Your wife IS a good woman, and
she's a lady, too. Anyone with half an eye can see she's not one of the
common sort."

The farmer shook the poor woman's hand good-naturedly and said heartily,
"That's so! All right, meeting's over. Goodbye." Then he turned to his work
and chuckled, "That's what Tom Watterly said. Thank the Lord! She ISN'T of
the common sort. I've got to brace up and be more of a man as well as Tim
Weeks."

In spite of the pain in his head, Alida's words proved true. He was happier
than he had been in many a long day. He had the glow which follows a generous
act, and the thought that he had pleased a sweet little woman who somehow
seemed very attractive to him that May morning; at the same time the old Adam
in his nature led to a sneaking satisfaction that he had laid on the hickory
so unsparingly the evening before.

Alida uttered a low, happy laugh as she heard him whistling "Coronation" in
jig time, and she hustled away the breakfast things with the eagerness of a
girl, that she might be ready to read to him when he came in.


Chapter XXVII. Farm and Farmer Bewitched