Not for six weeks, at least, Johnny judged, could he beg the day’s holiday that was to take him and Bessy back to the forest; and it might be more.  That would be in July—or even August—and probably the weather would be more trustworthy then.  As for Bessy, she counted the days on the almanack, and tapped the yellow-faced old barometer that had been gran’dad’s, a dozen times a day.  Johnny laughed at her impatience, and invented endless weather prophecies “just from America” putting the weather for the whole of July at every possible shade of unpleasantness, from blizzards to floods and thunderstorms.

The days went quietly—they were even dull.  Mr. Butson did what he could to make himself agreeable, and several times praised a set of callipers that Johnny had made—a set of callipers that Johnny, in fact, thought very well of himself.  So that he seemed not such a bad fellow, perhaps, after all, though a bit of a sponge.

There was nothing to cause it, to all seeming, but it was a fact that just now Nan May grew thoughtful and p. 165absent of manner.  She would pause in the midst of needlework, as though to think; and more than once at such a time, Bessy, looking up from her own work, saw that her mother’s troubled gaze was fixed on herself.  Nan May put away the anxious look as well as she might, and bent to her work again; but Bessy wondered.

Johnny, too, fancied that his mother was scarce so cheerful as was her wont, though he thought of it less than Bessy.  But one Sunday afternoon, meeting her by her bedroom door, he took her cheeks between his palms, and looked hard in her face.  “Mother,” he said, “I believe you’ve been crying!  What’s up?”

She put a hand on each of his wrists, and made a shift to smile.  “That’s nonsense,” she said, and tried to pull his hands down.  “You’re gettin&............