"That would be enough for any reasonable man," said the Harvester angrily. "Forgive me, Ruth, I have been cruel. I forgot how frail and weak you are. It is having Harmon here that makes me unnatural. It almost drives me to frenzy to know that he may take you from me."
"Then send him away!"
"SEND HIM AWAY?"
"Yes, send him away! I am tired to death of his poetry, and seeing him spoon around. Send both of them away quickly!"
The Harvester gulped, blinked, and surreptitiously felt for her pulse.
"Oh, I've not developed fever again," she said. "I'm all right. But it must be a fearful expense to have both of them here by the week, and I'm so tired of them, Granny says she can take care of me just as well, and the girl who helps her can cook. No one but you shall lift me, if I don't get my nose Out until I can walk alone Both of them are perfectly useless, and I'd much rather you'd send them away."
"There, there! Of course!" said the Harvester soothingly. "I'll do it as soon as I possibly dare. You don't understand, honey. You are yet delicate beyond measure, internally. The fever burned so long. Every morsel you eat is measured and cooked in sterilized vessels, and I'd be scared of my life to have the girl undertake it."
"Why she is doing it straight along now! She and Granny! Molly isn't out of Doctor Harmon's sight long enough to cook anything. Granny says there is `a lot of buncombe about what they do, and she is going to tell them so right to their teeth some of these days, if they badger her much more,' and I wish she would, and you, too."
The Harvester gathered the Girl to him in one crushing bear hug.
"For the love of Heaven, Ruth, you drive me crazy!
Answer me just one question. When you told me that you `adored and worshipped' Doctor Harmon, did you mean it, or was that the delirium of fever?"
"I don't know WHAT I told you! If I said I `adored' him, it was the truth. I did! I do! I always will!
So do I adore the Almighty, but that's no sign I want him to read poetry to me, and be around all the time when I am wild for a minute with you. I can worship Doctor Harmon in Chicago or Onabasha quite as well.
Fire him! If you don't, I will!"
"Good Lord!" cried the Harvester, helpless until the Girl had to cling to him to prevent rolling from his nerveless arms. "Ruth, Ruth, will you feel my pulse?"
"No, I won't! But you are going to drop me. Take me straight back to my beautiful new bed, and send them away."
"A minute! Give me a minute!" gasped the Harvester. "I couldn't lift a baby just now. Ruth, dear, Ithought you LOVED the man."
"What made you think so?"
"You did!"
"I didn't either! I never said I loved him. I said I was under obligations to him; but they are as well repaid as they ever can be. I said I adored him, and Itell you I do! Give him what we owe him, both of us, in money, and send them away. If you'd seen as much of them as I have, you'd be tired of them, too. Please, please, David!"
"Yes," said the Harvester, arising in a sudden tide of effulgent joy. "Yes, Girl, just as quickly as I can with decency. I----I'll send them on the lake, and I'll take care of you."
"You won't read poetry to me?"
"I will not."
"You won't moon at me?"
"No!"
"Then hurry! But have them take your boat. I am going to have the first ride in mine."
"Indeed you are, and soon, too!" said the Harvester, marching up the hill as if he were leading hosts to battle.
He laid the Girl on the bed and covered her, and called Granny Moreland to sit beside her a few minutes. He went into the gold garden and proposed that the doctor and the nurse go rowing until supper time, and they went with alacrity. When they started he returned to the Girl and, sitting beside her, he told Granny to take a nap. Then he began to talk softly all about wild music, and how it was made, and what the different odours sweeping down the hill were, and when the red leaves would come, and the nuts rattle down, and the frost fairies enamel the windows, and soon she was sound asleep.
Granny came back, and the Harvester walked around the lake shore to be alone a while and think quietly, for he was almost too dazed and bewildered for full realization.
As he softly followed the foot path he heard voices, and looking down, he saw the boat lying in the shade and beneath a big tree on the bank sat the doctor and the nurse. His arm was around her, and her head was on his shoulder; and she said very distinctly, "How long will it be until we can go without offending him?"
