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Rh I was afraid, in brightening first on me, Then on Baptiste, as if she understood What passed between us, she was only feigning. Baptiste was anxious for her; but no more Than for himself, so placed he couldn't hope To keep his bargain of the morning with me In time to keep me from suspecting him Of really never having meant to keep it.

Needlessly soon he had his axe-helves out, A quiverful to choose from, since he wished me To have the best he had, or had to spare— Not for me to ask which, when what he took Had beauties he had to point me out at length To insure their not being wasted on me. He liked to have it slender as a whipstock, Free from the least knot, equal to the strain Of bending like a sword across the knee. He showed me that the lines of a good helve Were native to the grain before the knife Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves Put on it from without. And there its strength lay 'For the hard work. He chafed its long white body From end to end with his rough hand shut round it. He tried it at the eye-hole in the axe-head. "Hahn, hahn," he mused, "don't need much taking down." Baptiste knew how to make a short job long For love of it, and yet not waste time either.

Do you know, what we talked about was knowledge? Baptiste on his defence about the children He kept from school, or did his best to keep—