It had been so exciting that he had tumbled his news all out at once, although he was a quiet boy and slow of speech. "Oh, Luther! Are you really going away?" The girl exclaimed in dismay. "Yass," the boy replied, falling back unconsciously into Swedish pronunciation. He had begun his announcement with pleased animation, but now that it was out, and she was sorry, the going did not seem so pleasing. "I wisht I wasn't!" he added with quick dejection. "I should think you'd be glad. I'd be glad, if I was going too." The boy looked surprised and asked with some curiosity, "What do you want to go for? I thought you liked Kansas." "Put your hand on your horse's neck," she commanded, leaning forward and setting the example. The boy did as she told him, but drew his hand back suddenly. "Gosh!" he exclaimed. "Don't their hair get hot in this sun!" "Well, I'm just as hot as that all over," she replied emphatically, "and I want to go to a country where a body can get under a tree once in a while. I can't go in till five o'clock, and I forgot my jug, and I'm so thirsty I feel as if I'd crack like this ground," she said, pointing to the earth between them. "Jimminy! I'll ride back and fetch you a drink," he said, poking his heels into his pony's ribs so suddenly that the little beast kicked spitefully. The girl called after him to "never mind," but he was off on his errand. It was a good mile to her home, but the boy knew what it meant to forget the water-jug on a day like this. When he returned half an hour later the sunshine had changed character and there was a peculiar dimming of its brilliancy. "Is it going to rain?" the girl asked as she lowered the jug to her knee. She wiped her lips on the skirt of the faded sunbonnet she wore and looked up again. "Rain!" Luther Hansen swept the horizon with the air of one who knew the signs, backing his horse about to see on all sides as he did so. "Th' don't seem t' be any clouds," he said in surprise. "Ain't it queer! Looks's if it might be some kind of eclipse," he said. "Do you remember--no, of course you don't--but, th' was an eclipse of th' sun--total, I believe they called it--when I was only about seven year old. All th' chickens went to roost, it got so dark, an' when th' cover come off they crowed's if 'twas mornin'. We had a blue hen an' she crowed too. Pap killed 'er. He said it was bad luck t' have a hen crowin' about th' place." "You all don't believe in luck, do you?" the child asked. "I don't, but pap does," the boy answered apologetically. "I cried about th' blue hen; she was just like a dog; she'd let you ketch 'er, an' she'd sing, 'co-ook, co-ook, co-ook,' to 'erself, right in your arms, an' wasn't afraid. She wouldn't never set though. I guess that's why pap was so ready with his axe." Happening to look up again, the girl gave an exclamation of surprise. "Is it snow?" she asked. "No!"