The straw-stack was there to remind of it still, not fair and golden now, but gray and weather-beaten from the winter storms. It had grown smaller with the passing months, and a great hollow had been worn in its side by the browsing cattle. On the soft matted floor of this inner shelter lay two calves, one with its pretty, fawn-like head resting on the dark red neck of the other. They turned soft wondering eyes to the girl as she looked in upon them, and a sitting hen, so near the color of the straw that at first she did not see her, ruffled warningly from her nest in the side.
She did not disturb them in their quiet retreat, but sat down for a little while in the warm friendliness beside their open door, and thought half-dreamily of that day that was gone. What a bustle of work had filled the place! She could see the puffing engine sending up its quick black breath against the sky, and the great crimson machine, like a chariot, at its back, with Morton Elwell at the front, a charioteer holding the car of plenty on its way, amid a score of sunburnt outriders. How confident he had looked as he stood there in his workman's dress, bare-armed and bare-throated, how strong and steady!
She smiled at her own fancy. And then the rest of the picture faded, leaving the one figure alone; but it was not at the threshing she saw him now, it was at home, at school, on the playground, and everywhere her comrade, her champion, her friend. Had he been something more in those old days, and was he still? Ah, if she could be sure of _that_! The letters had lost the old boyish freedom in these last months. She had complained once that Morton Elwell took too much for granted. He was taking nothing now.
Her father's voice calling from the house roused her at last from her revery, and they were off again for home. He was thinking too busily of his summer plans to talk, and she, wrapped in her own thoughts, was glad of the silence. But she broke it suddenly as they drew near the substantial brick house which belonged to the Elwells, almost at the end of the ride.
"Suppose you let me out here, father," she said. "I haven't been in to see Mrs. Elwell for weeks, and I've been thinking all the afternoon how good she was to us last summer at the threshing. I want to go in and thank her for it over again. I'll come home by myself in a little while."