He looked at her with keen appreciation of her physical freshness
and mental strength, and manoeuvred patiently toward the point
where he would dare ask blankly how many there were in her family,
and on exactly how many acres her father paid tax. He decided it
would not do for at least a week yet; possibly he could raise the
subject casually with someone down town who would know, so that he
need never ask her at all. Whatever the answer might be, it was
definitely settled in his own mind that Kate was the best chance
he had ever had, or probably ever would have. He mapped out his
campaign. This week, before he must go, he would be her pupil and
her slave. The holiday week he would be her lover. In the spring
he would propose, and in the fall he would marry her, and live on
the income from her land ever afterward. It was a glowing
prospect; so glowing that he seriously considered stopping school
at once so that her could be at the courting part of his campaign
three times a day and every evening. He was afraid to leave for
fear people of the village would tell the truth about him. He
again studied Kate carefully and decided that during the week that
was coming, by deft and energetic work he could so win her
approval that he could make her think that she knew him better
than outsiders did. So the siege began.
Kate had decided to try making him work, to see if he would, or
was accustomed to it. He was sufficiently accustomed to it that
he could do whatever she suggested with facility that indicated
practice, and there was no question of his willingness. He urged
her to make suggestions as to what else he could do, after he had
made all the needed repairs about the house and premises. Kate
was enjoying herself immensely, before the week was over. She had
another row of wood corded to the shed roof, in case the winter
should be severe. She had the stove she thought would warm her
room polished and set up while he was there to do it. She had the
back porch mended and the loose board in the front walk replaced.
She borrowed buckets and cloths and impressed George Holt for the
cleaning of the school building which she superintended. Before
the week was over she had every child of school age who came to
the building to see what was going on, scouring out desks,
blacking stoves, raking the yard, even cleaning the street before
the building.
Across the street from his home George sawed the dead wood from
the trees and then, with three days to spare, Kate turned her
attention to the ravine. She thought that probably she could teach
better there in the spring than in the school building. She and
George talked it over. He raised all the objections he could
think of that the townspeople would, while entirely agreeing with
her himself, but it was of no use. She over-ruled the proxy
objections he so kindly offered her, so he was obliged to drag his
tired body up the trees on both banks for several hundred yards
and drop the dead wood. Kate marshalled a corps of boys who would
be her older pupils and they dragged out the dry branches, saved
all that were suitable for firewood, and made bonfires from the
remainder. They raked the tin cans and town refuse of years from
the water and banks and induced the village delivery man to haul
the stuff to the river bridge and dump it in the deepest place in
the stream. They cleaned the creek bank to the water's edge and
built rustic seats down the sides. They even rolled boulders to
the bed and set them where the water would show their markings and
beat itself to foam against them. Mrs. Holt looked on in
breathless amazement and privately expressed to her son her
opinion of him in terse and vigorous language. He answered
laconically: "Has a fish got much to say about what happens to it
after you get it out of the water?"