He was not a
self-analyst, of course, being young, though he was more
introspective than the ordinary farmer.
He had a great deal of time to think it over as he worked on there,
pitching the heavy bundles, but still he did not get rid of the
miserable desire to punish Agnes; and when she came out, looking
very pretty in her straw hat, and came around near his stack, he
knew she came to see him, to have an explanation, a smile; and yet
he worked away with his hat pulled over his eyes, hardly noticing
her.
Ed went over to the edge of the stack and chatted with her; and
she-poor girl!-feeling Will's neglect, could only put a good face on
the matter, and show that she didn't mind it, by laughing back at
Ed.
All this Will saw, though he didn't appear to be looking. And when
Jim Wheelock-Dirty Jim-with his whip in his hand, came up and
playfully pretended to pour oil on her hair, and she laughingly
struck at him with a handful of straw, Will wouldn't have looked at
her if she had called him by name.
She looked so bright and charming in her snowy apron and her
boy's straw hat tipped jauntily over one pink ear that David and
Steve and Bill, and even Shep, found a way to get a word with her,
and the poor fellows in the high straw pile looked their
disappoimment and shook their forks in mock rage at the lucky
dogs on the ground.
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