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 She kissed him back with answering passion. For a long time they stood together in the soft drizzle, the shade of the beeches and maples deepening about them into twilight gloom.

It was all easy after that for Jerry. It was a speedy, simple, natural courting, like the coming together of two young wild things in the woods. Jerry, who was of a practical turn of mind, immediately began to plan for their future.

"I think I'll sign a contract with old Hiram Stone for next year, Judy," he said to her one spring evening, when they had met down by the brook in the hollow, a spot that they had chosen as a trysting place. "It's too late to get any land for this year. But next first of March we'll move into a little home of our own. Won't that be nice, Judy?"

"I dunno if it'll be nice or not," doubted Judy, looking straight at him. "I hain't never been very fond of keepin' house, Jerry."

She had a disconcerting way of stating a disagreeable fact quite baldly and then nailing it to his consciousness by looking him through and through with those clear, level, gray eyes of hers. He felt saddened and frustrated by her lack of enthusiasm for the little home on which he had pondered so fondly. Instinct told him what to do on such an occasion. He took her in his arms, kissed her, fondled her, made her love him. Then the feeling of unity came back and they were at peace again.

"You know," he went on, "old man Stone has got the best land anywheres around here. An' if I kin raise about five acres of tobacco on his ground, we'll be able to lay by a little money, Judy. An' after a few years we kin buy us a little place of our own. I don't want to be like all these poor devils that lives all their lives from hand to mouth a-workin' on somebody's else's ground an' never havin' a foot o' land that they kin call their own. It hain't no way to live, Judy. You an' I'll do better'n that. I want to own my own place; so if I don't like a feller's looks I kin tell him to git off of it."

Jerry took on a male and belligerent expression. Judith looked at him and laughed mockingly.