the Braleys had their clearing.

Phebe crushed the cigarette in her fingers. Suddenly she was nervous.

"It's natural I have changed a lot," she said. "If you hear me saying
anything rough pinch me."

Richmond Braley was standing beside his house in the muddy clothes in
which he had labored on the roads, and Mrs. Braley and Hannah came
eagerly forward. Behind them sounded Susan's racking cough. Sentimental
tears rolled dustily over Phebe's cheeks as she kissed and embraced her
mother and sisters.

"H'y," Richmond Braley awkwardly saluted her; and "H'y," she answered
in the local manner.

"Well," he commented, "you hain't forgotten that anyway."

Calvin was asked to stay for the supper that had been delayed for
Phebe's return, but when he declined uncertainly he wasn't pressed.
Putting up Hosmer's rig and saddling his own horse he rode slowly and
dejectedly on.

Instead of going directly back to Greenstream he followed the way that
led to his new house. The evening was silvery with a full brilliant
moon, and the fresh paint and bright woodwork were striking against the
dark elevated background of trees. The truck patch would be dug on the
right, the clearing widen rod by rod. From Alderwith's meadows came the
soft blowing of a steer's nostrils, while the persistent piping of the
frogs in the hollows fluctuated in his depressed consciousness.