But Lucy was not so mild. From the kitchen behind her father she pushed past him and out upon the porch, her eyes ablaze. “No apples!” she cried, in a voice like a scream. “Why not?” “This frost has killed them,” said Johnny, his eyes hardening. She almost sprang at him, beat on his broad chest with her fists, and tears streamed down her face. “You fool! You damned fool!” she cried. “There’ve got to be apples. There’ve got to be! You said there would be! You said if we worked, there would be! If we sprayed the damned trees! Oh, you make me sick, with your lies! Oh, I hate this farm! I hate the damned trees....” Johnny surprised her. He took her by the shoulders, gripping them till she winced. “Stop it, Lucy,” he commanded. “I won’t!” she cried. “Let go of me....” “Be still your noise,” he said, no more loudly than before. But the insistence in his voice constrained her, and she began to weep bitterly, and slumped against him, shaken and half fainting. “You can’t talk that way,” he told her. “It’s no way to talk. You got to be a sport. It’s a part of the business, Lucy. Now you go in the house and wash your face and help with breakfast. I want to talk to your father. Go along.” Her father watched her; and his face was white with surprise and consternation. But Lucy turned and went obediently into the house, and he looked after her, and looked at Johnny Dree; and Johnny grinned, a little sheepishly. “You see,” he said, ignoring what had happened. “Thing is, you can raise some garden stuff, and some chickens and things, and get along. We’re due for a good year next year.” Walter Moore nodded. “That’s all right,” he assented, and looked again at the door through which Lucy had gone. “But I’d like to shake hands with you, Dree. I’d like to shake your hand.” IV The stoic patience of the farmer, who serves a capricious master and finds his most treasured works casually destroyed by that master’s slightest whim, takes time to learn, but is a mighty armor, when it has been put on. It was Johnny Dree’s heritage; it was, in remoter line, the heritage also of Walter Moore. It bore them through that summer, and through the frost-hued glory of the fall. There is a pleasure in a task well done, regardless of reward; and when Moore surveyed his trees, he found this pleasure. Johnny Dree confirmed it. “They’re like money in the bank, Mr. Moore,” he said. “You can’t lose it, and it pays you interest right along. We’re due for a good apple year, next year.” Moore nodded. “I’m beginning to like it here,” he assented. “It was tough, at first. But I’m no worse in debt than I was last year, and I ought to pull out when the trees begin to bear.” “Aye,” said Johnny Dree. “You’ve got something to build on, now. It’ll go easier, from now on.”