Part 60

"See ye later," he said, with a grin. "I'll call for the cake next time."

"Call till you split your throat, if you want to," said 'Cindy.

Apparently this could have gone on indefinitely, but it didn't. Lucindy went to Minneapolis for a few weeks to stay with her brother, and that threw Claude deeper into despair than anything Mrs. Kennedy might do or any word Lucindy might say. It was a dreadful blow to him to have her pack up and go so suddenly, and without one backward look at him, and, besides, he had planned taking her to Tyre on the Fourth of July.

Mr. Kennedy, much better-natured than the mother, told Claude where she had gone.

"By mighty! That's a knock on the nose for me. When did she go?"

"Yistady. I took her down to the Siding."

"When's she coming back?"

"Oh, after the hot weather is over; four or five weeks."

"I hope I'll be alive when she returns," said Claude, gloomily.

Naturally he had a little more time to give to Nina and her remarkable doings, which had set the whole neighborhood to wondering "what had come over the girl."

She no longer worked in the field. She dressed better, and had taken to going to the most fashionable church in town. She was as a woman transformed. Nothing was able to prevent her steady progression and bloom. She grew plumper and fairer, and became so much more attractive that the young Germans thickened round her, and one or two Yankee boys looked her way. Through it all Claude kept up his half-humorous banter and altogether serious daily advice, without once realizing that anything sentimental connected him with it all. He knew she liked him, and sometimes he felt a little annoyed by her attempts to please him, but that she was doing all that she did and ordering her whole life to please him never entered his self-sufficient head.

There wasn't much room left in that head for any one else except Lucindy, and his plans for winning her. Plan as he might, he saw no way of making more than the two dollars a day he was earning as a cream collector.

Things ran along thus from week to week till it was nearly time for Lucindy to return. Claude was having his top buggy repainted, and was preparing for a vigorous campaign when Lucindy should be at home again. He owned his team and wagon and the buggy--nothing more.

One Saturday Mr. Kennedy said, "Lucindy's coming home. I'm going down after her to-night."

"Let me bring her up," said Claude, with suspicious eagerness.

Mr. Kennedy hesitated. "No, I guess I'll go myself. I want to go to town, anyway."

Claude was in high spirits as he drove into Haldeman's yard that afternoon.

Nina was leaning over the fence singing softly to herself, but a fierce altercation was going on inside the house. The walls resounded. It was all Dutch to Claude, but he knew the old people were quarrelling.

Nina smiled and colored as Claude drew up at the side gate. She seemed not to hear the eloquent discussion inside.

"What's going on?" asked Claude.

"Dey tink I am in house."

"How's that?"

"My mudder she lock me up."

Claude stared. "Locked you up? What for?"

"She tondt like it dot I come out to see you."

"Oh, she don't?" said Claude. "What's the matter o' me? I ain't a dangerous chap. I ain't eatin' up little girls."

Nina went on placidly. "She saidt dot you was goin' to marry me undt get the farm."

Claude grinned, then chuckled, and at last roared and whooped with the delight of it. He took off his hat and said: