It would be hard to explain the old man's obliviousness. Perhaps he had forgotten his own youth; or class prejudice had gone so deep with him as to preclude the bare thought of a child of his falling in love with one of his “men.” His imagination could not so insult his own blood. But when the awakening came, his passion of anger and resentment knew no bounds. To discharge his faithless employee out of hand would be the cripple throwing away his crutch. Though he called Adam _one_ of his men, and though his pay was that of a common laborer, his duties had long been of a much higher order. Abraham had made a very good bargain out of the widow's son. Adam knew well that he could not be spared, and pitied the old man's helpless rage. He took his frantic insults as part of his senility, and felt it no unmanliness to appease it by giving his promise that he would speak no more of love to Emmy while he was taking her father's wages. But Emmy did not indorse this promise fully. To her it looked like weakness, and implied a sort of patience which did not become a lover such as she wished hers to be. The winter wore on uncomfortably for all. Towards spring, Becky's last illness and passing away brought the younger ones together again, and closer than before. Adam kept his promise through days and nights of sickroom intimacy; but though no word of love was spoken, each bore silent witness to what was loveliest in the other, and the bond between them deepened. Then spring came, and its restlessness was strong upon them both. But it was Emmy to whom it meant action and rebellion. They stood on the orchard hill one Sunday afternoon at the pause of the year. Buds were swelling and the edges of the woods wore a soft blush against the vaporous sky. The bare brown slopes were streaked with snow. A floe of winter ice, grinding upon itself with the tide, glared yellow as an old man's teeth in the setting sun. From across the river came the thunder of a train, bound north, two engines dragging forty cars of freight piled up by some recent traffic-jam; it plunged into a tunnel, and they waited, listening to the monster's smothered roar. Out it burst, its breath packed into clouds, the engines whooped, and round the curve where a point of cedars cut the sky the huge creature unwound itself, the hills echoing to its tread. Emmy watched it out of sight, and breathed again. “Hundreds, hundreds going every day! It seems easy enough for everybody else. Oh, if I were a man!” “What do you want I should do, Emmy?” Adam knew well what man she was thinking of. “_I_ want? Don't you ever want things yourself?” “When I want a thing bad, I gen'ly think it's worth waiting for.” “People don't get things by waiting. I don't know how you can stand it,--to stay here year after year. And now you've tied yourself up with a promise, and you know you cannot keep it!” “I'm trying to keep it.”