“My mother!” she panted. “Oh she was a beautiful woman, delicately reared, and her heart was crushed and broken. By the inch she went to a dreadful end I could not avert or allay, and in poverty and grime I fought for a way to save her body from further horror, and it's all so dreadful I thought all feeling in me was dried and still, but I am not quite calloused yet. I suffer it over with every breath. It is never entirely out of my mind. Oh Man, if only you would lift her from the horrible place she lies, where briers run riot and cattle trample and the unmerciful sun beats! Oh if only you'd lift her from it, and bring her here! I believe it would take away some of the horror, the shame, and the heartache. I believe I could go to sleep without hearing the voice of her suffering, if I knew she was lying on this hill, under your beautiful tree, close the dear mother you love. Oh Man, would you----?” The Harvester crushed the Girl in his arms and shuddering sobs shook his big frame, and choked his voice. “Ruth, for God's sake, be quiet!” he cried. “Why I'd be glad to! I'll go anywhere you tell me, and bring her, and she shall rest where the lake murmurs, the trees shelter, the winds sing, and earth knows the sun only in long rays of gold light.” She stared at him with strained face. “You----you wouldn't!” she breathed. “Ruth, child,” said the Harvester, “I tell you I'd be happy. Look at my side of this! I'm in search of bands to bind you to me and to this place. Could you tell me a stronger than to have the mother you idolized lie here for her long sleep? Why Girl, you can't know the deep and abiding joy it would give me to bring her. I'd feel I had you almost secure. Where is she Ruth?” “In that old unkept cemetery south of Onabasha, where it costs no money to lay away your loved ones.” “Close here! Why I'll go to-morrow! I supposed she was in the city.” She straightened and drew away from him. “How could I? I had nothing. I could not have paid even her fare and brought her here in the cheapest box the decency of man would allow him to make if her doctor had not given me the money I owe. Now do you understand why I must earn and pay it myself? Save for him, it was charity or her delicate body to horrors. Money never can repay him.” “Ruth, the day you came to Onabasha was she with you?” “In the express car,” said the Girl. “Where did you go when you left the train shed?” “Straight to the baggage room, where Uncle Henry was waiting. Men brought and put her in his wagon, and he drove with me to the place and other men lowered her, and that was all.” “You poor Girl!” cried the Harvester. “This time to-morrow night she shall sleep in luxury under this oak, so help me God! Ruth, can you spare me? May I go at once? I can't rest, myself.” “You will?” cried the Girl. “You will?” She was laughing in the moonlight. “Oh Man, I can't ever, ever tell you!”