“Bud!” cried Nance quickly, “you’re the most sure-enough he-man I know. You’ve got the patience and the courage of ten common men. If it hadn’t been for your steady backing I’d never be on Nameless now. I’d have quit long back.”
“Like the dickens you would!” said Bud, but a grin replaced the shadow of bitterness on his face.
Supper that night was particularly pleasant.
There were new potatoes and green peas from the garden down by the river, and a plate of the never failing cookies of which Sonny could not get enough.
“He’s hollow to his toes,” said Mrs. Allison, “I can’t never seem to get him full.”
“The little shaver’s starved,” said Bud.
“Not starved, but he ain’t had regular food—not right to grow on. I can see a difference already.”
Nance reached over an investigating hand to feel the small shoulder. It bore proudly a brand new shirt made from one of Bud’s old ones. To be sure, there was a striking dissimilitude of colors, since part of the fabric had been under a pocket and had not faded, but Sonny wore it with the air of kings and princes.
“Yes, sir,” she said judicially, “he is gaining, sure as the world!”
It seemed to Nance that night that all was well with the world, very well. There seemed a wider margin of hope than usual, as if success, so long denied them, was hovering like a gigantic bird above the homestead, as if their long labor was about to have its reward. She fell asleep thinking of the whispering field, of the trip to Bement, and—of Brand Fair’s quiet, dark eyes, the look of the chin-strap on his brown cheek.