"Do you want to sell it?" said Rachel. "You might see father; he'd like to have it, I expect." "Can't you guess what it is that I'm coming at?" "No, I _can't_," said Rachel; "not to save my life." "Looky here, Rache," and Henry gave his shoulders a twitch, "the two farms jine; now, what if you and me was to jine?" "Well, Henry Miller, if you don't beat the Dutch! I never heard the like of that in all my born days!" Rachel had heard many propositions of marriage, but this sort of love-making, with eighty acres of prairie land for a buffer, was a novelty to her. "Looky here, Rache," he said, in a tone of protest, "I've knew you ever since you was knee-high to a grasshopper. Now, what's the use of fooling and nonsense betwixt you and me? You know what _I_ am--a good, stiddy-going, hard-working farmer, shore to get my sheer of what's to be had in the world without scrouging anybody else. And I know just _ex_actly what you air. We've always got along mighty well together, and if I haven't ever made a fool of myself about your face, w'y, so much the better for me. Now, whaddy yeh say? Let's make it a bargain." "W'y, Henry Miller, what a way of talking!" "Rache, come, go along with me and see where'bouts I'm going to put up a house. Father's promised to help me. It's down by the spring, just beyand your medder fence. Will you go along down?" "Well, I don't care if I do go down with you, Henry. But it's awful funny to come to such a subject in that way." Rachel put on her sun-bonnet, and they went through the orchard together. "We could put up a nice house there. Father's willing to throw in a forty of timber too--the forty that jines onto this eighty over yander. We'd be well fixed up to begin, no matter what your father done or didn't do for us. Whaddy you think of the plan?" "You--you haven't said you loved me, or anything," said Rachel, piqued at having her charms quite left out of the account. But she could not hide from herself that Henry's proposition had substantial advantages. She only added, "What a curious man you are!" "Don't you believe I'd make a good husband?" "Yes, of course you would." "And a good provider?" "Yes, I'm shore of that." "Well, now, I'm not going to pretend I'm soft on you. If you say 'No,' well and good; there's an end. I sha'n't worry myself into consumption. You've got a right to do as you please. I'm not going to have folks say that I'm another of the fools that's broke their hearts over Rache Albaugh. Once you're mine, I'll set my heart on you fast enough. But I never set my heart on anything I mightn't be able to get."