She went into all
of the barns, but there were no men about. Even the strange farm hand who
had carried her bags into the house had disappeared, and the stalls in
the horse and cattle barns were empty. Then she went into the orchard and
climbing a fence went through a meadow and into the wood to which she had
always fled, when as a girl on the farm she was troubled or angry. For
a long time she sat on a log beneath a tree and tried to think her way
through the new idea of marriage she had got from her father's words. She
was still angry and told herself that she would leave home, would go to
some city and get work. She thought of Kate Chanceller who intended to be
a doctor, and tried to picture herself attempting something of the kind.
It would take money for study. She tried to imagine herself talking to her
father about the matter and the thought made her smile. Again she wondered
if he had any definite person in mind as her husband, and who it could
be. She tried to check off her father's acquaintances among the young men
of Bidwell. "It must be some new man who has come here, some one having
something to do with one of the factories," she thought.
After sitting on the log for a long time, Clara got up and walked under
the trees. The imaginary man, suggested to her mind by her father's words,
became every moment more and more a reality. Before her eyes danced the
laughing eyes of the young man who for a moment had lingered beside her
while Kate Chanceller talked to his companion that evening when they had
been challenged on the streets of Columbus.
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