"
The girl was still silent, but the man's simple enthusiasm came to
her charged with passion and a sort of romance such as her hard
life had known little of. There was something enticing about this
trip to the West.
"What 'li my folks say?" she said at last.
A virtual surrender, but Rob was not acute enough to see it. He
pressed on eagerly:
"I don't care. Do you? They'll jest keep y' plowin' corn and milkin'
cows till the day of judgment. Come, Julyie, I ain't got no time to
fool away. I've got t' get back t' that grain. It's a whoopin' old crop,
sure's y'r born, an' that means som'pin' purty scrumptious in
furniture this fall. Come, now." He approached her and laid his
hand on her shoulder very much as he would have touched Albert
Seagraves or any other comrade. "Whady y' say?"
She neither started, nor shrunk, nor looked at him. She simply
moved a step away. "They'd never let me ge," she replied bitterly.
"I'm too cheap a hand. I do a man's work an' get no pay at all."
"You'll have half o' all I c'n make," he put in.
"How long c'n you wait?" she asked, looking down at her dress.
"Just two minutes," he said, pulling out his watch. "It ain't no use t'
wait.
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