Mid-July, for the hay was ripe then, and Reuben and his mother were returning from carrying a noon meal and a jug of beer to the outer fields. Other men beside Father were there, and Ben too, and some other older children and women to help with the raking, but Reuben at seven years old was no use with a rake. He had been allowed to carry the beer, sipping one mouthful and no more on the way. This was the homeward journey, and she in a smiling mood, tanned cheeks flushed, dark eyes full of mischief. She sat in the long grass by the palisade gate, sweeping her skirt about to cover her feet in one graceful glide of her arm, lightly as any young girl---- (And so she was of course. Always young. Never to be old.) "Sit by me, Puppy." No one else was about: only the men in the fields now toylike with distance, a flock of cloud-sheep radiant in the lower sky, a bumblebee lighting with clumsy abruptness on Reuben's knee. "Ah, don't stir! He won't sting thee. See!--yellow packets on his legs, he's been a-gathering. Tell me where he's been and what did he see?" (Warmth of a laughing face expecting nonsense.) "Why, Mother, he went away over England, away over France, even way away over Boston, and he went awa-a-ay over the places in Ben's Hakluyt book where the Spice Islands are, and there was a king with ten thousand courtiers and he stung them. Every one." "Now why? Did they do wrong?" "They stole the king's beer." "What, all ten thousand of 'em?" "Every-each of the ten thousand." "Now, love, what a selfish old pig the king must've been, for if there was beer enough for all ten thousand, I vow that was more than he'd ever drink alone, la?" "Phoo, he was a big king." "Ah, I see.... And was there a queen of the Spice Islands?" "There was, and she did try to prevent them stealing the beer, but one would be tying spoons to her apron the while the rest was after it, she could no-way catch 'em." "Wicked things!... Was she beautiful?" "Ay, but not like you." "Reuben, thou'lt have me weeping." "Why, Mother? What for?" "I don't know, Puppy. They say women must weep sometimes, if only because--I don't know.... Don't ever leave me." * * * * * On the same Monday night Ben Cory dreamed: