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 Indians flyin' off our place! He was so mad I thought he was goin' to get his gun an' shoot them. I wish he had."

"What about your fruit?" asked Edmund, turning to Derek. "How shall you get it picked?"

"I'm just going to let the thimbleberries go," said Derek, passively. "The apples and pears can be sold to a dealer outright, who will bring his own men to pick them."

"What a pity to lose your berries, though. They look a tremendous crop, too."

"They are. The ground is black with them, and the canes bending beneath the weight, but it can't be helped."

"We'd sooner waste them than keep those Sharroes an' Jammery about," put in Fawnie.

Edmund got up from the table with relief. The baby was beginning to hiccough and drool. Fawnie carried him outdoors and laid him on a pillow on the grass. Jock, the collie, came at once and lay down beside him. Edmund stared for a moment at the child's downy fair head, then with a sigh, he turned on his heel and went into the parlour. He sat down before the piano and began to play the waltz from "The Merry Widow" with languid, appealing stress.

Fawnie followed him, and stood against his back, gazing with fascination at the movements of his hands, her body gently swaying with the rhythm. "Oh, I like that piece," she breathed. "Is it a hymn? It don' sound jus' like a hymn, and yet it's too slow for a jig. Say, Ted" (she had, at once, acquired the familiar nickname), "when you play like that it makes me feel like as if my blood was dancin' in my body."

He looked up at her curiously. "Your blood dancing, eh, Fawnie? Fast and wild? or slow and sweet?"

"Slow, an' heavy, an' sweet, like the music. Tum-te, tum-tum; tum-te, tum-tum, like that. Ain't it comical?"