"Of course we must. We'll just do with-
out till we get the mortgage lifted. Hard
work will do anything, I guess. And I'm
not afraid to work, Jim, though I've never
had much experience."

Jim looked out of the window a long time,
at the gentle undulations of the brown Iowa
prairie. His eyes seemed to pierce beneath
the sod, to the swelling buds of the yet
invisible grass. He noticed how disdain-
fully the rains of the new year beat down
the grasses of the year that was gone. It
opened to his mind a vision of the season's
possibilities. For a moment, even amid
the smoke of the car, he seemed to scent
clover, and hear the stiff swishing of the
corn and the dull burring of the bees.

"I wish sometimes," he said, leaning for-
ward to look at his bride, "that I had been
born something else than a farmer. But I
can no more help farming, Annie, than a
bird can help singing, or a bee making
honey. I didn't take to farming. I was
simply born with a hoe in my hand."

"I don't know a blessed thing about it,"
Annie confessed. "But I made up my
mind that a farm with you was better than