"Say, you ought to see her throat, speakin' about throats. Puttiest thing you ever seen in your life--white as snow----" "With the pink of the sunset falling on it," said Milford, with his gluttonous mind's eye upon the Norwegian's neck. "If that ain't it, I'm the biggest liar that ever milked a cow. Just exactly it. And yet you wouldn't advise me to take her again." "I'd kick her downstairs," said Milford. "Yes, that's all right, Bill; but it would save getting a divorce. Still, my other girl's the thing. I can put confidence in her, and the first one was tricky. I couldn't tell her a thing that wan't repeated. I'll stand for anythin' sooner than bein' repeated all the time. How are you gettin' along over at the house?" Milford put him off with the remark that everything was all right so far as he knew. A man may gabble of a love that is spreading over the heart, but when it has gathered the whole world beneath its wings he is more inclined to silence. The hired man continued to talk. Before he met the freckled woman he had looked forward to sixteen hours a day at eighteen dollars a month. He had not dared to see the flush of the sunrise light his bedroom window, except perhaps on some odd Sunday when he might steal the sweet essence of a forbidden nap, but his "love" for that woman had promised him an unbroken dream at dawn and a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs at eight. After all, it was fortunate that the first woman had run away. She was saucy and had made his heart laugh, at times, but he was a hired man still, and the cold dew of the morning had cracked his rough boots and caused his wet trousers to flap about his ankles. "Bill," he asked, "do you ever expect to wear a boiled shirt all the week and sleep till after sun-up?" Milford had learned that this was the hired man's notion of elegance and of ease. He answered that such a time might come. "It's got to come with me," said Mitchell. "It's comin', and I'd be a fool to dodge it. Yes, sir, and I'm goin' to have me about a dozen shirts made. I don't care so much about the coat and pants; I want the shirts. And I want 'em made as broad as I can fill 'em out, with a ruffle or two, and as white as chalk. That's the way I want to be dressed when fellers come to me and ask if I want to hire a man. Bill, you look like you've made up your mind to do some thin'. What is it? Git married?" "I came here with my mind already made up," Milford replied, new lines seeming to come to the surface of his countenance. "And I'm not going to change it," he declared, louder of tone, as if he had been debating with himself. "I'm going to follow the line, and then if something else comes, all the better." "What is your line, Bill?" "Haven't you learned enough not to ask that?" "Oh, well, but I didn't know but you'd found out there wouldn't be any harm in tellin' me. We've been working together a good while, and I've got an interest in you. I've told you what my object is."