When they did talk it was usually about the crops--the wheat. It was wonderful heavy wheat. It was the best wheat in all the neighbourhood. Occasionally they took out the little coffeepot and drove through the country and looked at other wheat, but there was none so fine as theirs.
And with the money it would bring--the golden wheat turned into gold--they would---- And now came endless dreams.
"I thought we'd sell the old coffeepot to the junkman and get a brand-new car, a good one, but now----" This was Wes.
"I think we ought to save, too. A boy'll need so many things."
"Girls don't need anything much, I suppose--oh, no!" He touched her cheek with gentle fingers.
So went their talk, over and over, an endless garland of happy conjectures, plans, air castles. Cousin Lorena sent little patterns and thin scraps of material, tiny laces, blue ribbons.
"I told her blue--blue's for boys," said Annie. And Wes laughed at her. It was all a blessed interlude of peace and expectancy.
The wheat was ready for harvest. From her place under the clematis vine, where she sat with her sewing, Annie could see the fields of pale gold, ready for the reaper. Wes had taken the coffeepot and gone down to the valley to see when the threshers would be able to come. In the morning he would begin to cut. Annie cocked a questioning eye at the sky, for she had already learned to watch the farmer's greatest ally and enemy--weather.
"If this good spell of weather only holds until he gets it all cut!" She remembered stories he had told her of sudden storms that flattened the ripe grain to the ground, beyond saving; of long-continued rains that mildewed it as it stood in the shocks. But if the good weather held! And there was not a cloud in the sky, nor any of those faint signs by which changing winds or clouds are forecast.
She heard the rattle and clack of the returning coffeepot, boiling up the hill at an unwonted speed. And she waved her hand to Wes as he came past; but he was bent over the wheel and did not even look round for her, only banged the little car round to the back furiously. Something in his attitude warned her, and she felt the old almost-forgotten devil of her fear leap to clutch her heart.