he said, dropping on the step where the doctor had sat when she opened her heart to him and told him about her father. It all surged back upon her now. She could not sit there with Frale. “I’ll make my bed myself, an’ I’ll — I’ll sleep wharevah you want me to, ef hit’s up on the roof or out yandah in the water trough. Come, sit.”

“We’ll go back on the porch, and I’ll take mother’s chair. I’m right tired.”

“When we git in our own cabin ovah t’othah side Lone Pine, you won’t have nothin’ to do only tend on me,” he said, drawing her to him. He led her across the open space and placed her gently in her mother’s chair on the little porch.

“Now, Frale, sit down there and listen,”