Marietty Bacon, ain't you an' Lime Gilman goin' t' be married ?" "No, sir, we ain't," laughed the girl, snatching up the plate and darting away to the house, where she struck up "Weevily Wheat," and went busily on about her cooking.

Lime threw a kiss, at her, and fell to work on his log with startling energy.
Lyman looked forward to his interview with the old man with as much trepidation as he had ever known, though commonly he had little fear of anything--but a girl.
Marietta was not only the old man's only child, his housekeeper, his wife having at last succumbed to the ferocious toil of the farm.

It was reasonable to suppose, therefore, that he would surrender his claim on the girl reluctantly.

Rough as he was, he loved Marietta strongly, and would find it exceedingly hard to get along without her.
Lyman mused on these things as he drove the gleaming ax into the huge maple logs.

He was something more than the usual hired man, being a lumberman from the Wisconsin pineries, where he had sold out his interest in a camp not three weeks before the day he began work for Bacon.