"There is nothing
the matter with me. I am a sound man."
"But you were certainly groaning," insisted Miss Anna, "for I heard
you; and you must have been groaning about _something_."
He dropped his eyes, palpably crestfallen, and scraped the bricks
with one foot.
Harriet nudged Miss Anna not to press the point and threw herself
gallantly into the breach of silence.
"I am coming out to see you sometime, Mr. Webb," she said
threateningly; "I want to find out whether you are taking good care
of my calf. Is she growing?"
"Calves always grow till they stop," said Ambrose, axiomatically.
"How high is she?"
He held his hand up over an imaginary back.
"Why, that is _high_! When she stops growing, Anna, I am going to
sell her, sell her by the pound. She is my beef trust. Now don't
forget, Mr. Webb, that I am coming out some day."
"I'll be there," he said, and he gave her a peculiar look.
"You know, Anna," said Harriet, when they were alone again, "that
his wife treats him shamefully. I have heard mother talking about
it. She says his wife is the kind of woman that fills a house as
straw fills a barn: you can see it through every crack. That
accounts for his heavy expression, and for his dull eyes, and for
the groaning. They say that most of the time he sits on the fences
when it is clear, and goes into the stable when it rains."
"Why, I'll have to be kinder to him than ever," said Miss Anna.
"But how do you happen to have a calf, Harriet?" she added, struck
by the practical fact.
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