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 absent 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’ too strong for your poor old mother to keep you in order!”

But she brightened, always, when Mr. Butson came in the evening; though Mr. Butson’s conversation scarce seemed of so inspiriting a character as to account wholly for the change. Still, it interested her. It was mostly about his grievances at the hands of the world; and Nan May was a ready sympathiser.

It was very near to the day (at last fixed) for the excursion, when Bessy woke in the night at the striking of a match. Her mother was lighting a candle, her back toward the bed. She took the candle and passed out, into Johnny’s room at the back. Bessy listened, but she heard no talk; heard nothing, indeed, but Johnny’s heavy breathing, so still was the night. Presently her mother returned, and stood over her, still with the candle; gazing on her face, it seemed to Bessy—as well as she could see through her half-closed eyes—much as she had gazed when she paused in her needlework, though now her cheeks were wet with tears. With that Bessy opened wide her eyes, and “Mother!” she said. “What’s the matter? Are you ill?”

Nan May turned and blew out the light. “No, Bess, no; I’m all right,” she said, and crept into bed. “It’s not—not much. I woke up, that’s all—with a bad dream.” She kissed the girl, and put her arm about her neck. “You’ve always been a good girl, Bessy,” she went on. “You wouldn’t turn against me, would you?”

“Why no, mother! But—”

“Not whatever happened?”

“No—of course not,” she kissed her mother again. “But why?”

“It’s nothing. Only the dream—just the dream, Bess. Go to sleep.”