"I don't care, I'm going again some day before long," she said; "she won't be going out much now for a while."

"Well, now, look here," Nathan said, stubbornly sticking to a conviction from which he was unable to get away. "You think Hunter keeps her from coming. He give us more of a welcome 'n she did, a good sight."

Susan Hornby glanced around at her husband in astonishment. She had never said that she thought Elizabeth was prevented by John from coming to see them. Nathan had measured her better than she had realized.

"No-o, he didn't," she replied slowly. She resolved to speak frankly. "You didn't see her when she took me into the house. Honestly, Nate, it was better than a whole revival service to have that girl tell me of—of——"

"I didn't see that," Nathan interrupted, "I only know he was glad t' see us; you saw that for yourself."

"I was just going to say——" Susan considered a moment and then said firmly: "He was glad to see us because there was something about those cattle he hadn't told her. Didn't you see the look on her face?"

"That wouldn't make no difference with th' way he'd do by us. 'E was as glad as could be, an' asked you t' come back 's if you'd been 'is mother. It's some stuck-up notion of hers—this thing of them not visitin' their neighbours."

Susan looked up at him indulgently.

"You won't refuse to be good friends with her—for my sake, Nate. She was as glad to see me as a little child."

"Why don't she come t' see you then?" Nathan asked sternly, able only to see the one point.

"I don't exactly know, Nate. I couldn't crowd her on that matter—she looked so worried when I brought it up that I just let it go. I only know she wants to come."

They dropped the subject and rode along over the smooth road, too absorbed in their own thoughts to get pleasure out of this last sleighride of the season, both endeavoring to solve the problem from their own viewpoint, Nathan full of distrust and suspicion, his wife too well versed in human nature to doubt Elizabeth's honesty or believe that she was spoiled by a fine home or an advanced social position. At last she spoke her conclusions:

"There's something in her face I like better'n ever, but there's a worried something there I don't like to see."

Nathan was sorry he had criticised Elizabeth. Sue loved the girl. Nathan and Susan discussed, but never argued. If Susan remained of her first opinion after talking a thing over, Nathan conceded within himself that she had some good reason for her convictions even where he could not agree.

"Sue 'll have t' see it for herself," he meditated. "I'd be glad t' see 'er right. We'll see how it turns out." But as he tried to get himself into that frame of mind he remembered how many days had been spoiled for his wife that winter because she longed for Elizabeth, and he involuntarily muttered:

"Dirty little huzzy!" and ground his straggling teeth as he thought of it.

* * * * *

After Nathan and Susan Hornby had turned into the main road, John walked slowly back to the house.

"What'd I say that Mrs. Hornby didn't like?" he asked, as he entered the kitchen where Elizabeth was preparing the supper which Nathan had declined to stay and eat.

Elizabeth's brow was drawn into a puckered wrinkle. She followed her own laborious thinking, unaware that her husband had spoken.

"What'd I say that riled Mrs. Hornby?" he repeated.

Elizabeth heard the question now and looked up. It was hard to answer. To mention the tone in which he had spoken of Luther was useless she knew. Her hesitancy annoyed her husband.

"Well, what's wrong?"

"Nothing—that is——" Elizabeth could not discuss it.

John Hunter resented her silence. He turned without speaking and picked up the water pail quickly. John heaped coals of fire by performing household duties.

Reflecting that he was going to be angry whether she talked out or not, Elizabeth laid a detaining hand on his arm and spoke of what she felt she could get his attention fixed upon.

"I was thinking of all that money we're going to have to pay some day, John. I—I've tried before to make you understand me. Oh, John, dear, don't you see—but then, no, of course you don't, you've never had the experience of it. You see, dear, I've had it. It takes the heart out of people. You never get rid of it after you get into it once. You just go on, you get old and quarrelsome—and—and you never have any good times because you're afraid of something—of the interest that's got to be met, and things. Why won't you let me help you? You didn't tell me about these last cattle, nor the Carter lot. Why——"

"Now look here, Elizabeth, a man can't run to the house and consult a woman about every little thing he does, before he does it. I always tell you when I can. I told you about this."

Irritability was John Hunter's strongest weapon.

"I don't want you to run to the house to tell me about every little thing you do," the young wife explained patiently, "but these debts will not be little things when they come to be paid off, dear. Really, you don't know how they will sap you and me later on; they may even take the farm right out from under our feet. There are so many things that can happen to cattle—and interest has to be paid. That's the awful part of it, and——"

John fidgeted uneasily and did not look at her. He wanted to get away. He had not come in to talk of this. Elizabeth held his sleeve and he had to say something.

"I haven't failed to get what you need out of this money," he said at last. "I can't have you shutting out opportunities for business. I'll raise the interest. If I furnish the money I ought to be free to make a living the best way I see how. What do you know about a man's business?"

Desiring only to convince him, which she could not do if he were irritated, Elizabeth laid her paring knife on the kitchen table and put her arm about her husband's neck coaxingly.

"Of course you get everything I need, dear; that isn't the trouble. I don't want to shut out opportunities for business either, but I gave up my education to help pay interest. I know how hard it is to raise. The calves die, and the cows don't give milk enough to make up the difference. The loss—— Oh, I know," she said putting her hand affectionately over his mouth to still the objection he had started to offer. "You think beef cattle will be different, but black-leg gets into a herd of beef cattle just as readily as into the cows and calves, and frosted corn is a liability Kansas farmers always have hanging over a crop. I'm not complaining about the cattle that are paid for—it's those we'd have to pay for that were dead. The money was yours and you had a right to spend it as you chose, but the debts will be ours. The skimping and saving will fall on me as much as on you, and skimping makes people mean and penurious. Promise me you won't go into debt without telling me again."

"Forget it, little woman," John replied, patting her face and kissing it many times. "I'll never do anything to disgrace you."

He had not replied to a single argument; he had not made a single promise. Elizabeth submitted to his caresses with a sigh. It was useless. She could not fall out with him for the sake of the child that was coming. She resolved to accept what she could get and try to be patient.

"I'm glad you were so nice to Aunt Susan," she said, trying to get away from the impossible and make as much as she could out of the possible. "we'll go over Sunday. I'd begun to think you'd never do it. We'll take them by surprise."

John Hunter laughed indulgently. "You think you got me that time," he said, and escaped to the well without further remark.

Elizabeth looked after him, and pondered, with a quivering lip, on the wilfulness of the refusal to promise. She had been so sure that she was escaping the hell of mortgages and interest when she married. The farm was already carrying every cent the loan companies would give on first papers. If anything should happen to the stock they would have to put a second mortgage on part of it. John was determined to work on a large scale. She had tried many times to show him how hard it would be to raise large incumbrances, but whenever she did so he became fretful and for days spoiled the home comfort for which she strove. Elizabeth tried to model their home life after that of Aunt Susan, and leave her husband free to use his own judgment, but this matter of indebtedness was alarming. She knew how slowly money came in on the farm and how impossible it was to raise a mortgage once it was plastered over a piece of land. Already she saw the day of payments, note-renewals, and chattel mortgages staring them in the face. Elizabeth's pride had suffered a fall. She saw the weary years stretch ahead of them without joy and without hope other than that which those about them had, unless some special providence assisted them to avoid the common lot of farmers. As she went about her table-setting, however, the quality of the linen, of the dishes, of every object in the room differed from anything she had ever known, and the hope of youth came to her aid. This home should be different from the rest; she would make it so by patience as well as by its possessions. The black-leg was not an immediate danger, and she would look for the best.

* * * * *

Winter passed, and spring. The patience Elizabeth had vowed to command had been tried to the utmost in some particulars. John had never taken her to see Aunt Susan. Sometimes he said "wait till next week," sometimes he said he was tired, more often he retired into his accustomed irritability, and at last because of the evidences of her pregnant state she ceased to desire it. The winter had not been totally unpleasant. If she did not irritate her husband they were very happy together. John had pleasant little ways about the house and was as helpful as the most exacting woman could demand. The spring had been harder because Elizabeth had less strength and the house and garden work had increased. It took three hired men to keep the farm work done, and there were many mouths to fill.

One particularly hot day in June John unloaded on the kitchen table an armful of groceries he had just brought from town, remarking as he did so:

"I brought home some dried blackberries for pies, Elizabeth."

Hepsie Brown, the lately acquired hired girl, stood at Elizabeth's elbow, and began to put the parcels away in the cupboard.

Elizabeth took a couple of letters he was handing her and went into the sitting room to read them. John followed her in.

"Be sure you make the pies," he said with an emphasis which showed he meant to have it remembered.

"All right, dear."

"You'd better cook the fruit to-night," he added.

"All right. I'll tell Hepsie."

"Better do it yourself," he cautioned.

"She can do it. I'll tell her," Elizabeth said without looking up, but she knew that that would not end the discussion the moment it was out of her mouth. She recognized John's most unpleasant insisting mood.

"Mother always tends to her own pie-baking. Girls never get things right," he said emphatically, waiting for her to raise her eyes to his.

"Yes, yes, dear," the girl answered, looking up as he required. "She can do it just as well as I can; it don't hurt her to stand on her feet."

She had given the sign of submission and he was ready to be pleasant about it, but he reiterated the demand.

"I know, dear," he said, kissing her, "but I can't bear to have things coming on the table not right when we have men about. It don't take long to make a few pies."

Elizabeth rose wearily, put the letters down and went to the kitchen. Her face was drawn and there was a fagged, weary droop to the shoulders. John demanded that the house and cooking be kept up to the city standard, forgetting that there was a garden to keep in order also, besides little chickens to feed and butter to be made. If Elizabeth had said she were sick and had gone to bed, John would have had the doctor come to see her twice as often as necessary, and would have exhausted the little town of Colebyville to supply such things as she could eat, but it never occurred to John Hunter that as long as his wife was able to go about the house that she might know what she should do much better than he.

Elizabeth was unable to defend herself. She coveted peace, and she could not have peace unless she responded to John's suggestions. Also, at this time Elizabeth was determined that she would not be cross. The coming child absorbed her mind as much as it absorbed her body. She would not let one hour of discord or inharmony affect its life. Elizabeth had no idea how to manage her husband so as to get him even to listen to her side of an argument. The girl was worn out by useless things which she could not avoid doing.

Elizabeth was extremely nervous at this period of her life. John went to bed full of healthy fatigue and slept soundly till morning, and knew nothing of mental and physical strains which left his wife more tired in the morning than when she went to bed at night. Elizabeth had been a strong girl, but she was supporting the life of another; she tossed and moaned through the two or three short hours in which she could sleep, and for the rest lay wide-eyed, staring into the darkness, filled with terror at what the rapidly approaching future held for her. In her girlish imaginings and fears, ignorant of the facts a young mother should have known, she had magnified the sufferings of childbirth till life was a network of horrors, and her nerves were at the breaking point.

The next morning Elizabeth, with aching back and trembling knees, her face flushed from the heat of the stove, stood at the kitchen table rolling out the pie crust. A tear rolled down her cheek. Hepsie, who stood near and was regarding her sympathetically, laid firm hold on the rolling-pin.

"I knew you'd no business t' do it. Now you go in an' set down in th' rockin' chair while I finish this here batch of pies."

Hepsie was older than Elizabeth and making pies had been her business; the crust was mixed and the fruit had been cooked the night before. Reflecting that not much could happen to a pie after getting that far on the road to perfection, Elizabeth let the rolling-pin be taken from her hand and went in wearily to throw herself on the lounge to rest.

John came into the kitchen and his face darkened.

"Tell Mrs. Hunter that I look for Hansen to help with the grain to-day, and that I told him to bring his wife with him," he said to Hepsie, and went out, banging the door after him.

Elizabeth had heard him come in and had risen to explain, but stopped short when she heard that Luther had been asked to help. Her first feeling was of a joy which brought the tears to her eyes. John had been persistently cool whenever Luther had been mentioned since their marriage. The next feeling of which she was conscious was an intense distaste to having Sadie in the house with her all day, and this was followed by the thought that John had known that Luther and Sadie were coming since the day before and had said nothing about it to her; but small time was given her to think about any phase of the matter, for Luther's familiar, unpainted wagon was at that very moment coming into the side lane. With a conviction that she had not been told till it was absolutely necessary, Elizabeth walked promptly out to meet her young neighbours.

It was the old Luther which greeted her.

"You know my wife, Lizzie," he said with such a happy look in Sadie's direction that Elizabeth's heart responded to the call for open friendship. Luther never nursed suspicion.

"I should just say I did," Elizabeth replied warmly, extending her hand to the little woman Luther was setting on her feet. Luther climbed promptly into the high seat from which he had just lifted his wife and held his own hand down to Elizabeth from there.

"It was mighty fine for you to send word for her t' come along."

And Elizabeth did not let him gather from any hint of expression or word that so far from sending word for Sadie to spend the day with her, she had not known till in these last ten minutes that either of them was expected. John came and talked to Luther, mounting the spring-seat at his side to ride to the field, but did not look at Elizabeth, though she looked at him longingly and everything in her cried out for reconciliation and openness. John had a way of ignoring her when explanations had to be made.

Luther's attitude toward his wife had influenced Elizabeth in Sadie's favour as nothing else had ever been able to do. She began to feel less hostile, and as they turned toward the house asked her interestedly how she was "coming on" with her garden and chickens. This was common ground, and Sadie warmed to the real welcome she was accorded. She stopped beside Elizabeth's coops in the backyard and examined the little groups of begging, downy balls with the animation of a true farmer's wife. Here was something she knew as well as Elizabeth; in fact, when a count was made it was discovered that Sadie's broods several times outnumbered those of the neighbour she envied. It was an absorbing topic of conversation, and the two women stood for some moments with the hungry little beggars clamouring lustily about them. Suddenly they became conscious of the smell of burning sugar.

"Oh, my goodness!" Elizabeth exclaimed, and ran to the kitchen, leaving her guest to follow as she chose.

Hepsie had gone upstairs, and as Elizabeth opened the oven door a cloud of smoke rolled out which nearly blinded her and set her to coughing.

Sadie followed her in and somehow her mood changed as she looked over the well-kept kitchen. Something in the tidy order and tasty arrangement of its shelves hurt. Sadie was not a natural housekeeper.

"Bet she just thinks she beat us all," she thought as she laid her bonnet on the sitting-room sofa, where she had felt of the pillows, and the lambrequin which hung from the long shelf where the clock and vasts stood, on the opposite side of the room. "Bet she don't put on no airs about me just the same." She looked at the small bookcase below the mantel in a perfect rage of envy. Elizabeth was surrounded by the things which befitted Elizabeth, and Sadie realized as she had never done in their childhood the chasm which separated them, and knew nothing of the anguish of the young wife as she laboured with the disfigured pies, nor that Elizabeth thought of the look of love she had seen Sadie receive with something very like envy in her heart.

Elizabeth thought long upon the joy in Luther's face as he greeted her. John must have made some move about the request for help which covered the neglect of all these months adequately to Luther. Sadie finished her inspection of the inner regions and returned to the kitchen primed with things to be said to her rival, and Elizabeth fared badly at her hands. Her innate refinement would not let Elizabeth strike back in the coarse way in which she was attacked, and she listened to hints and pretended sympathy on the subject of Farnshaw domestic difficulties, of reported debts which John Hunter had contracted, and neighbourhood estimates of the fact of her own secluded manner of life since her marriage, till her head swam and her memory was scorched for many a day. But though her head ached and her knees almost refused to perform their office, Elizabeth remained in the kitchen and superintended every dish prepared for that harvest dinner. The fact that the pies had scorched left her with the feeling that John had had a foundation of real fact for his demand that she give them her personal attention, and left her humbled and ready to beg forgiveness. Every fibre of her cried out for the trust she had seen in Luther's glance at Sadie. There was true marriage, and the state which she laboured daily to establish.

At dinner John did not look at Elizabeth, though her eyes sought his constantly, and when the pie was passed around she remarked on its trimmed edges shamefacedly.

Silas Chamberlain wiped his knife on a piece of bread and slid it under the section nearest him.

"You never mind about them edges. It looks like a good pie t' me, an' John here will eat his share of it, I'll warrant you. Th' rest of this company can survive if he does. I just been a thinkin' as I set here what a stunnin' cook you've got t' be in these ten months. I used t' think you'd have a lot t' learn after you was married, but you seem t' 'a' learned it short off—eh, John?"

John Hunter had to reply. "I've been sorry mother had to go away. Elizabeth's done pretty well, but mother would have been a great help, with her fixed ways of doing things," he said reluctantly.

Luther had been looking earnestly at John, but spared Elizabeth when he saw her confusion by looking quickly down at his plate and saying nothing.

"Don't know's Lizzie needs any help as far as doin' things is concerned, though she may need more rest," Silas returned; and Sadie took up the subject.

"I think my stove bakes a little better on the bottom," she remarked critically.

"I low t' taste your pies to-morrow if it don't rain," Silas answered her without looking up from the bite he was severing with the knife upon which it was to be conveyed to his mouth.

Luther Hansen's laugh rang out heartily.

"Don't," he said, winking at Sadie. "She'll be keepin' me out of th' field t' fire th' oven."

The sting of the criticism was drawn by Luther's merry acceptation of it. Sadie laughed too, but the hint left its rankling point. These same men would harvest for them on the morrow, and as Sadie looked over Elizabeth Hunter's well set table she knew that she would not have the advantage on her side.

"Lizzie's always had th' best of everything," she thought.

Silas Chamberlain thought over the day's events as he rode slowly home. While unhitching, Old Queen nipped angrily at Bob, who had sniffed at her collar pad, and Silas cuffed her ears.

"Whoa, there, you spiteful beast! You'll be wantin' pie that's a leetle better done on th' under crust next. Drat 'er! I could 'a' fit right there, only—well you kin allus hit harder with that kind of folks if you don't let yourself git riled. Pore little woman! Not little, neither—but a year ago so young an' glowin' with happiness. Used t' make me think of a bob-white, trottin' up an down these roads s' contented like, an' allus so friendly an' sociable. Looks 's if she didn't have spirits enough t' laugh at nothin' these days. Looks 's if she'd had a peep into a den of wild beasts an' was afraid they'd break out an' get 'er. Liza Ann's got t' go an' see 'er, an' I'm goin' t' tell 'er so."

As Silas went toward the house, he stopped suddenly and looked back at the wagon, which stood in the same place he had left it that rainy afternoon over a year ago.

"She looked that peert with 'er red lips an' bright eyes, a askin' if th' school board was t' meet. Pore little woman—she ain't a goslin' any more, an' 'er new feathers ain't turnin' th' rain very good neither," he reflected, shaking his head.

The long day ended at last and John came to the house after the evening chores were finished. Elizabeth waited for him in her bedroom. Throughout the entire evening she had been telling herself that she must make this thing right. For the sake of the expected child she must not let her mind be disturbed with the hurt feeling she had been unable to put away since John had gone out without letting her explain about the morning's baking. She allowed herself no angry or resentful thought for the prolonged and cruel reproach. Dry-eyed, she sat by the open window in her nightdress, making buttonholes in a tiny slip as she waited. She heard him deposit the basket of cobs beside the kitchen stove, which he never forgot to bring in at night, and by the rattle of the dipper which followed and the chug, chug, chug of the pump knew that he was filling the reservoir. Breakfast on the farm was an early meal and greatly facilitated by small preparations. John never forgot nor neglected his part of the household duties. Elizabeth sighed. John had the appearance of right on his side when he demanded her highest efforts at the household altar. She put away the little slip as she heard him coming toward the bedroom and rose to meet him. The tears came in spite of every effort to stay them, and to hide her face she dug it deep into his shoulder while she sobbed out her story. It was a full minute before John's arm went about her, but at last reflecting that something was due one in her condition, he patted her heaving shoulders and said as if addressing a child:

"There, there now, I never thought of you feeling so bad," and after a minute's thought added, "but you see, dear, the part of the dinner you saw to yourself was all right, and the pies had to be apologized for."



CHAPTER XII

"PORE LITTLE WOMAN"

Silas Chamberlain answered to a loud knock on his door at the midnight hour. It was the first week of August.

"From Hunter's, you say?"

There was a mumbled conversation at the door.

"Why, yes, of course. Come right in—glad t' have you. When was you called—an hour an' a half ago? Now you come right upstairs, an' we'll have you in bed in two shakes. There now—them covers'll be too heavy, I 'spect, but you kin throw 'em off if you don't want 'em. Jest keep that light. I'll git another downstairs. Good-night. Oh, yes! Jake's gone for th' doctor, you say? Started an hour an' a half ago? Guess 'e ain't there yet—seven mile you know. Well, good-night!"

Silas stumbled down the steep stairs.

"Liza Ann, it's come! Pore little woman!"

He got back into bed and lay so still that his wife thought him asleep. "Pore child!" she heard him say just as she was drifting off to dreamland. An hour passed. An hour and a half. There was the sound of wheels.

"That's th' doctor, Liza Ann." There was no reply.

The old man fidgeted for fifteen minutes more; he had grown nervous. He slid out of the bed quietly and went to the barn.

"Thought I heard a noise," he told himself by way of excuse for his action. "Wonder if Old Queen's loose?" He felt his way along the manger carefully. Unaccustomed to midnight visitors, Queen snorted and shrank from his hand when he touched her.

"Whoa, there! You needn't be so blamed 'fraid—nothin's goin' t' hurt you. You ain't a woman."

Silas found a nail-keg and sat down on it across from the nibbling horses, and thought and waited.

"He's there by this time," he murmured presently. "Wisht they'd 'a' sent for Liza Ann. No, I guess it's better not. She wouldn't know what t' do, havin' no experience."

He debated with himself as to whether he should go back to bed or not.

"Couldn't sleep," he concluded. "Lord! how long the nights is when a feller's awake!"

The horses ate on uninterruptedly and the soft breeze stole through the old barn, while everything in nature was indicative of peace except the old man, whose mind worked relentlessly on the situation of the young wife whose certain suffering racked him almost as much as if he had stood in its presence.

"Gosh-a-livin's!" he exclaimed as a new thought struck him. "I wonder which one of 'em Jake got. Now that young Doc Stubbins ain't got no more sense 'n a louse. I ought t' 'a' told John an' I forgot. Lord! Lord! th' chances th' poor critters have t' take!"

Mrs. Chamberlain was awakened in the gray light of morning as her husband crept shivering into bed.

"Where you been?" she asked.

"Out t' th' barn. Heard a noise an' thought I'd better look into it," was Silas's reply.

* * * * *

As the sun rose the new life was ushered in. Doctor Morgan did not start home till after nine o'clock.

"Who is to have charge of your wife, Mr. Hunter?" he asked as he paused in the door and looked back at his patient anxiously. Seven miles was a long distance—and she might need him suddenly.

"Why, I thought Hepsie and I could care for her," John replied. Trained nurses were unheard of in those days.

"It simply cannot be," answered the old man. (Doctor Stubbins had not been engaged.) "Another attack like this last one would—well, you must have some one of experience here. It's a matter of life or death—at least it might be," he added under his breath. "Couldn't you stay?" he asked Susan Hornby, who sat with the baby on her knee. "The girl's liable to slip away from us before I could get here."

It was arranged that Aunt Susan should stay with the young mother, who was too weak to turn her head on the pillow it lay upon, for as the old doctor had said she was a desperately sick girl. They had but just kept her with them. The presence of Aunt Susan was almost as delightful to Elizabeth Hunter as the head of the child on her arm. Weak and exhausted, she was permitted such rest as she had not known in all the days of her married life. The darkened room and the quiet of the next three days were such a mercy to her tired nerves that she would have been glad to lie there for ages. Doctor Morgan let Susan Hornby return to her home and husband at the end of the week, confident that with care, Hepsie could perform the little offices required, but he was to learn that country people have little judgment in serious cases of illness, and that the young mother's room would be filled with company when he came out the next day.

Mr. and Mrs. Crane were the first to arrive on Sunday morning, and when John announced that they were driving up to the hitching post, Elizabeth begged weakly for him to say that she was too ill to see any one that day. John would have been glad to deliver that message, remembering the wedding day, but Sadie was with her mother, and John had found Luther a convenient neighbour of late.

"We can't offend them," he said.

"But I can't have them. Please, John—with my head aching already."

"Don't speak so loud," John said warningly.

Mrs. Farnshaw came and had to have her team tied to the barnyard fence. She walked to the house with the rest of the company, and even in their presence could not restrain her complaints because she had not been notified of her daughter's serious illness and the arrival of the child. Elizabeth's protest that they had been absorbed by that illness, and too busy to think of anything but the most urgent and immediate duties, did not quiet the objections, for Mrs. Farnshaw had the habit of weak insistence. Her mother's whine was never so hard to bear.

"Where's Mr. Farnshaw?" Mr. Crane asked. "He's grandpa now."

Elizabeth shrank into her pillows, and Mrs. Farnshaw bridled angrily.

"He's busy," was her tart reply.

"I should think he'd want t' see his grandson. Lizzie, you haven't showed me that boy," Mr. Crane insisted.

And Elizabeth, weak and worn, had to draw the sleeping child from under the quilts at her side and show him off as if he had been a roll of butter at a country fair, while constant reference was made to one phase or another of the unpleasant things in her experience. Her colour deepened and her head thumped more and more violently, and by noon when they trooped out to the dining room, where Hepsie had a good dinner waiting, the girl-wife was worn out. She could not eat the food brought to her, but drank constantly, and was unable to get a snatch of sleep before the visitors assembled about her bed again.

At four o'clock Doctor Morgan arrived and Luther Hansen came for Sadie. Sadie saw him drive in, and laughed unpleasantly.

"Luther wasn't a bit for comin', but I told him I'd come over with ma, an' he could come after me. He's always chicken-hearted, an' said since Lizzie was so sick we oughtn't t' come. I don't see as you're s' sick, Lizzie; you've got lots of good colour in your face, an' th' way you pull that baby around don't look much like you was goin' t' kick the bucket just yet."

Elizabeth made no reply, but watched John help Doctor Morgan tie his team.

"How's Mrs. Hunter?" Doctor Morgan asked John as he came around to the gate after the horses were fastened.

"All right, I guess. She's had a good deal of company to-day. I didn't want them, but you can't offend people."

"We usually have a good deal of company at a funeral," the old doctor said dryly, as he viewed the extra horses and wagons about the fence.

When he entered the sickroom his face hardened.

"I'm not as much afraid of your neighbours as you are, Mr. Hunter," he said, and went to the middle door and beckoned Luther to come with him into the yard. A few words was all that was needed with Luther Hansen, and the doctor returned to his patient.

* * * * *

Sadie was more sarcastic than usual as they drove home.

"I wouldn't 'a' come if I'd a known I wasn't wanted," she remarked sulkily.

"But, Sadie, Doc Morgan says she's worse! I'd turn 'em out quick enough if it was you."

Poor little Sadie Hansen caught the spirit of the remark. Nothing like it had ever before been offered her in all her bitter, sensitive experience. She looked up at her husband mollified, and let even Elizabeth have a season of rest as she considered this astonishing thing which marriage had brought to her.

Susan Hornby, who had thought her darling resting on this quiet Sabbath day, was reestablished at the bedside, and it was not till the morning of the tenth day that she again left the house. At the end of that time she was dismissed reluctantly by the good old doctor himself. It had been such a good excuse to be with Elizabeth that Aunt Susan had persuaded the long-suffering Nathan that her presence beside her was a thing not to be denied, and Nathan, glad to see Sue so happy, ate many a cold meal that haying season and did not complain. It was a great event in Susan Hornby's life. Gentle and cordial to all, Susan Hornby lived much alone—alone most of all when surrounded with her neighbours. Elizabeth was her only real tie.

"Oh, child! I'm so glad you've got him," she said one day as she laid the beautiful brown head on Elizabeth's arm.

Elizabeth patted the hand that was drawing the little white shawl over the baby's head. Master John Hunter—the babe had been named for its father—had had his daily bath, and robed in fresh garments, and being well fed and housed in the snuggest of all quarters, the little triangle made by a mother's arm, settled himself for his daily nap, while the two women watched him with the eyes of affection. Never again do we so nearly attain perfect peace in this turbulent life as during those first few weeks when the untroubled serenity of human existence is infringed upon by nothing but a desire for nourishment, which is conveniently present, to be had at the first asking, and which there is such a heaven of delight in obtaining. We are told that we can only enter the Kingdom of Heaven by becoming as little children: no other Kingdom of Heaven is adequate after that.

The life in this little room had taken Susan Hornby back to her own youth, and as often as otherwise when Master John was being put through his daily ablutions it was the little Katie of long ago that she bathed and robed fresh and clean for the morning nap. At other times Elizabeth was her Katie grown older. It was the flowering time of Susan Hornby's life. The fact that Elizabeth had never crossed her threshold since her marriage to John Hunter had faded out of Aunt Susan's mind. Elizabeth's every word and look spoke the affection she felt for her. Other people might sneer and doubt, but Susan Hornby accepted what her instincts told her was genuine.

* * * * *

Elizabeth got about the house slowly. The days in bed had been made tolerable by the presence of those she loved, but she was far from strong, and she looked forward with reluctance to the time when Aunt Susan would not be with her. John complained of Hepsie's work only when with his wife alone, for Aunt Susan had been so constant in her praises that he would not start a discussion which he had found he brought out by such criticism.

Susan Hornby looked on, and was as much puzzled as ever about the relations of the young couple. Elizabeth was evidently anxious about John's opinions, but she never by so much as a word indicated that they differed from hers. She spoke of him with all the glow of her early love; she pointed out his helpfulness as if he were the only man in the world who looked after the kitchen affairs with such exactitude; she would have the baby named for no one else, and all her life and thought centred around him in so evident a manner that Aunt Susan could not but feel that she was the happiest of wives. She talked of her ideals of harmony, of her thankfulness for the example of the older woman's life with her husband, of her desire to pattern after that example, of everything that was good and hopeful in her life, with so much enthusiasm as to completely convince her friend that she had found a fitting abiding place. And, indeed, Elizabeth believed all that she said. Each mistake of their married life together had been put away as a mistake. Each day she began in firm faith in the possibility of bringing about necessary changes. If she failed, she was certain in her own mind that the failure had been due to some weakness of her own. Never did man have a more patient, trusting wife than John Hunter. There had been much company about the house of late, and there had been no difficulties. Elizabeth was not yet analytical enough to reason out that because of the presence of that company far less demand had been made upon her by her husband. She thought that they were really getting on better than they had done, and told herself happily that it must be because she was more rested than she had been and was therefore not so annoyed by small things. It was ever Elizabeth's way to look for blame in herself. The baby was a great source of pleasure also. He was a good child and slept in the most healthy fashion, though beginning now when awake to look about him a little and try to associate himself with his surroundings. Elizabeth had begun to look forward to Silas's first visit with the child. Silas had quaint ways with the young, and it was with very real pleasure that she dragged herself to the door and admitted him the first week she was out of bed. Elizabeth led the old man to the lounge on tiptoe.

"I want you to see him, Mr. Chamberlain; you and he are to be great friends," she said as she went down on her knees and drew the white shawl reverently from the sleeping face. "Isn't he a fine, big fellow?" she asked, looking up at the old man.

"'E ought t' be, havin' you for his mother," Silas said with an attempt at being witty, and looking at the baby shyly.

The baby roused a little, and stretched and grunted, baby fashion.

"Lordie! what good sleep they do have!" Silas said, holding out his finger to the little red hand extended toward him, and then withdrawing it suddenly. "Now, Liza Ann sleeps just like that t' this day." He spoke hesitatingly, as if searching for a topic of conversation. "She does 'er work regular like, an' she sleeps as regular as she works. I often think what a satisfyin' sort of life she leads, anyhow. She tends t' 'er own business an' she don't tend t' nobody else's, an'—an'—she ain't got no more on 'er mind 'n that there baby."

Elizabeth gathered the child into her arms and seated herself in a rocking chair, while the old man sat stiffly down on the edge of the lounge and continued:

"Now I ain't that way, you know. I have a most uncomfortable way of gettin' mixed up in th' affairs of others."

"But it's always a friendly interest," Elizabeth interposed, mystified by his curious manner and rambling conversation.

Silas crossed his knees and, clasping his hands about the uppermost one, rocked back and forth on the edge of the lounge.

"Most allus," he admitted, "but not quite. Now I'm fair ready t' fight that new Mis Hansen. I've been right fond of Luther, for th' short time I've knowed 'im, but what he see in that there Sadie Crane's beyond me. He's square. He looks you in th' face 's open 's day when he talks t' you, an' you know th' ain't no lawyer's tricks in th' wordin' of it. But she's different. They was over t' our house Sunday 'fore last an' I never knowed Liza Ann t' be's near explodin' 's she was 'fore they left. It done me right smart good t' see 'er brace up an' defend 'erself. I tell you Mis Hansen see she'd riled a hornet 'fore she got away. Liza Ann 'll take an' take, till you hit 'er just right, an' then—oh, my!"

Silas ended with a chuckle.

"After they left, she just told me I could exchange works with somebody else; she wasn't goin' t' have that woman comin' t' our house no more."

"Sadie is awfully provoking," Elizabeth admitted, "but—but—Luther likes her, and Luther is a good judge of people, I always thought."

"Yep," Silas admitted in return, "an' I don't understand it. Anyhow, I never knew Liza Ann come s' near forgettin' 'erself. It was worth a day's travel t' see."

They talked of other things, the baby dropped asleep in its mother's arms, and Silas took his departure.

"How unlike him," Elizabeth said to herself as she watched him go to his wagon.

Silas rode away in an ill-humour with himself.

"Now there I've been an' talked like a lunatic asylum," he meditated. "I allus was that crazy about babies! Here I've gone an' talked spiteful about th' neighbours, an' told things that hadn't ought t' be told. If I'd a talked about that baby, I'd 'a' let 'er see I was plum foolish about it—an' I couldn't think of a blessed thing but th' Hansens."

He rode for a while with a dissatisfied air which gave way to a look of yearning.

"My! How proud a man ought t' be! How little folks knows what they've got t' be thankful for! Now I'll bet 'e just takes it as a matter of course, an' never stops t' think whether other folks is as lucky or not. She don't. She's in such a heaven of delight, she don't care if she has lost 'er purty colour, or jumped into a life that'll make an ol' woman of 'er 'fore she's hardly begun t' be a girl, nor nothin'. She's just livin' in that little un, an' don't even know that can't last long."

There was a long pause, and then he broke out again.

"Think of a man havin' all that, an' not knowin' th' worth of it! Lord! If I'd 'a' had—but there now, Liza Ann wouldn't want me t' mourn over it—not bein' 'er fault exactly. Guess I ought t' be patient; but I would 'a' liked a little feller."

* * * * *

When John came home that night Elizabeth told him of Silas's visit.

"He hardly looked at baby at all," she said disappointedly, "and I'd counted on his cunning ways with it more than anybody's. I thought he'd be real pleased with it, and instead of that, he didn't seem interested in it at all, and sat and stared at me and talked about Sadie. I thought sure he'd want to hold it—he's got such cute ways."

"How could you expect an old fellow like him to care for babies?" John said, smiling at the thought of it. "A man has to experience such things to know what they mean."

He took the child from her arms and sat down to rock it while he waited for the supper to be put on the table.

"Say," he began, "I saw Hepsie setting the sponge for to-morrow's bread as I came through the kitchen. I'll take care of baby, and you go and see about it. The bread hasn't been up to standard since you've been sick. You'll have to look after things a little closer now that you are up again."

Elizabeth, whose back was not strong, had been sitting on the lounge, and now dropped into a reclining position as she replied:

"The bread has not been bad, John. Aunt Susan was always marvelling at how good it was compared to the usual hired girl's bread."

"It was pretty badly burned last time," John observed dryly.

"That didn't happen in the sponge, dear, and anybody burns the bread sometimes," she returned; "besides that, it makes my back ache to stir things these days."

John Hunter did not reply, but every line of him showed his displeasure. It was not possible to go on talking about anything else while he was annoyed, and the girl began to feel she was not only lazy but easily irritated about a very small thing. Reflecting that her back would quit hurting if she rested afterward, she arose from the lounge and dragged herself to the kitchen, where she stirred the heavy sponge batter as she was bidden.

Mrs. Hunter was expected to return in a little over a week, and the first days when Elizabeth was able to begin to do small things about the house were spent in getting the house cleaning done and the entire place in order for her coming. It happened that a light frost fell upon Kansas that year weeks before they were accustomed to look for it; and the tomato vines were bitten. It was necessary to can quickly such as could be saved. In those days all the fruit and vegetables used on Kansas farms were "put up" at home, and Elizabeth, with two, and sometimes more, hired men to cook for, was obliged to have her pantry shelves well stocked. The heat of the great range and the hurry of the extra work flushed the pale face and made deep circles below her eyes, but Elizabeth's pride in her table kept her at her post till the canning was done. By Saturday night the tomatoes were all "up," and the carpets upstairs had been beaten and retacked. Mrs. Hunter's room had been given the most exact care and was immaculate with tidies and pillow-shams, ironed by Elizabeth's own hands, and the chickens to be served on the occasion of her arrival were "cut up" and ready for the frying pan.

Sunday there was a repast fit for a king when John and his mother came from town. Every nerve in Elizabeth's body had been stretched to the limit in the production of that meal. Too tired to eat herself, the young wife sat with her baby in her arms and watched the hungry family devour the faultless repast. She might be tired, but the dinner was a success. The next morning, when the usual rising hour of half-past four o'clock came, it seemed to the weary girl that she could not drag herself up to superintend the getting of the breakfast.

"Mother'll help you with the morning work and you can lie down afterward," John assured her when she expressed a half determination not to rise.

But after breakfast Mrs. Hunter suggested that they scour the tinware, and the three women put in the spare time of the entire morning polishing and rubbing pans and lids. As they worked, Mrs. Hunter discussed tinware, till not even the shininess of the pans upon which they worked could cover the disappointment of the girl that her mother-in-law should have discovered it in such a neglected condition.

"Really, child, it isn't fit to put milk in again till it's in better condition. How did you happen to let it get so dull and rusty?"

"Now, mother, it isn't rusty at all. It is pretty dull, but that's not Hepsie's fault. It was as bright as a pin when I got up, but we've had the tomatoes to put up and the housecleaning to do and it couldn't be helped," Elizabeth replied, covering up any share the girl might have had in the matter. She knew the extra work which had fallen on Hepsie's shoulders in those last weeks, and particularly since she herself had been out of bed, for the girl loved Elizabeth and had shielded her by extra steps many times when her own limbs must have ached with weariness.

"You don't mean to say you used the tin pans for any thing as corroding as tomatoes!" Mrs. Hunter exclaimed in astonishment.

"We used everything in sight I think—and then didn't have enough," Elizabeth said with a laugh.

"But you should never use your milk pans for anything but milk, dear," the older woman remonstrated. "You know milk takes up everything that comes its way, and typhoid comes from milk oftener than any other source."

"There are no typhoids in tomatoes fresh from the vine," Elizabeth replied testily, and Mrs. Hunter dropped the subject.

But though she dropped the subject she did not let the pans drop till the last one shone like a mirror. With the large number of cows they were milking many receptacles were needed and John had got those pans because they were lighter to handle than the heavy stone crocks used by most farmers' wives. Elizabeth was more appreciative, of those pans than any purchase which had been made for her benefit in all the months she had served as John's housekeeper, but by the time she was through scouring she was ready to throw them at any one who was foolish enough to address her upon housekeeping; besides, she plainly discerned the marks of discontent upon Hepsie's face. Hepsie was a faithful servitor, but she had learned by several years of service to stop before her energies were exhausted. It was the first sign of dissatisfaction she had ever shown, and Elizabeth was concerned.

The next morning Elizabeth's head was one solid, throbbing globe of roar and pain. Mrs. Hunter brought her a dainty breakfast which it was impossible for her to eat, and said with genuine affection:

"We have let you do too much, my dear, and I mean to take some of this burden off of your shoulders. You're not yourself yet. John tells me you were sicker than people usually are at such times. I ought to have helped the girl with that tinware yesterday and sent you to bed."

Elizabeth listened with some alarm to the proposition of Mrs. Hunter taking the house into her own hands, but she was touched by the real sympathy and concern evident.

"It's good of you, mother. You'll have to be careful about Hepsie, though. You must not call her 'the girl' where she hears you. You see she is one of our old neighbours, and—and—well, they hate to be called that—and they aren't exactly servants."

"Well, I'll get the dinner for her—it's wash day. Don't try to get up," Mrs. Hunter said, taking the breakfast away with her.

"Be careful about Hepsie, mother," Elizabeth called after her in an undertone. "She's a good girl, if you understand her and—and they leave you at the drop of a hat."

Hepsie's going came sooner than even Elizabeth had feared. She brought a cup of coffee to her at noon, but avoided conversation and went out at once.

Elizabeth called her mother-in-law to her after dinner was over and cautioned her afresh.

"But I haven't had a word with her that was ill-natured or cross," Mrs. Hunter protested indignantly.

"I don't suppose you have, mother," the miserable girl replied, puzzled as to how she was to make the older woman understand. "It's—it's a way you have. I saw that she was hurt about that tinware. She's been very satisfactory, really. She takes every step off of me that she can. She's the best in the country—and—and they hang together too. If we lost her, we'd have a hard time getting another."

"Well, it makes me cross to have to work with them as if they were rotten eggs and we were afraid of breaking one, but if I have it to do I suppose I can. I only looked after the clothes to see that she got the streaks out of them. I knew she was mad about something, but I rinsed them myself; I always do that."

After Mrs. Hunter was gone Elizabeth thought the matter over seriously. Neither Hepsie nor any other girl they could get in that country was going to have her work inspected as if she were a slave. They were free-born American women, ignorant of many things regarding the finer kinds of housekeeping in most instances, but independent from birth and surroundings. In fact, there was a peculiar swagger of independence which bordered upon insolence in most of the homes from which Kansas help must be drawn. Elizabeth knew that their dignity once insulted they could not be held to any contract.

Mrs. Hunter went back to the kitchen and tried to redeem the mistakes she had made, but Hepsie would not be cajoled and the unpleasantness grew. Saturday night the girl came to Elizabeth and said, without looking her in the face at all:

"Jake says, if he can have th' team, he'll take me home. I—I think I won't stay any longer."

"Do you have to go, Hepsie?" Elizabeth said, her face troubled.

Hepsie avoided her glance because she knew the trouble was there. Hepsie had been very happy in this house and had been proud of a chance to keep its well supplied shelves in satisfactory condition. Gossip hovered over whatever went on in the Hunter home, and there was a distinction in being associated with it; also Hepsie had come to love Elizabeth more than she usually did her country mistresses. She saw that all the unkind things which were being said about Elizabeth's stuck-up propensities were untrue, and that Elizabeth Hunter was as sensible and kindly as could be wished when people understood her.

"I'll be up and around hereafter," Elizabeth continued. "You don't understand mother. She's all right, only she isn't used to the farm."

"I guess I understand 'er all right," Hepsie said sullenly; "'t wouldn't make no difference, you bein' up. She'd be a-tellin' me what t' do just th' same, an' I'm tired enough, washdays, without havin' somebody t' aggravate me about every piece that goes through th' rench."

She stood waiting for Elizabeth to speak, and when she did not, added resentfully:

"You an' me always got along. We had a clean house, too, if Mr. Hunter didn't think I knew much."

Elizabeth's surprise was complete. She had not supposed the girl knew John's estimate of her work. John was usually so clever about keeping out of sight when he insisted upon anything unpleasant that it had never occurred to Elizabeth that Hepsie was aware that John insisted upon having her do things which he felt that Hepsie could not be trusted to do unwatched. There was nothing more to be said. She reckoned the girl's wages, and told her that Jake could have the team.

Before Hepsie went that night, she came back to the bedroom and cuddled the baby tenderly.

"I'm—I'm sorry t' go an' leave you with th' baby so little, Lizzie. 'Taint hardly fair, but—but if you worked out a while you'd learn t' quit 'fore you was wore out." She stood thinking a moment, and then cautioned Elizabeth sincerely: "I'm goin' t' say one thing 'fore I leave: you'd better ship that old woman 'fore you try t' get another girl around these parts. I'll be asked why I left an'—an' I'll have t' tell, or git folks t' thinkin' I'm lazy an' you won't have me."

Elizabeth's heart sank. She would not plead for the girl to keep still. It would have been of no use; besides, her own sense of fairness told her that there was room for all that had been hinted at.

* * * * *

Monday John spent the day looking for a girl to take Hepsie's place. Tired and discouraged, he came home about four o'clock in the afternoon.

"Could you get me a bite to eat?" he asked Elizabeth as he came in. "I haven't had a bite since breakfast."

Elizabeth laid the baby on the bed, and turned patiently toward the kitchen. An hour was consumed in getting the extra meal and doing the dishes afterward, and then it was time to begin the regular supper for the rest of the family. When John found that she had thrown herself down on the bed to nurse the baby instead of coming to the table for her supper, he insisted that she at least come and pour the tea, and when she sat unresistant through the meal, but could not eat, he sent her to bed and helped his mother wash the supper dishes without complaint. The next morning, however, he hailed her forth to assist with the half-past four o'clock breakfast relentlessly, unaware that she had spent a weary and sleepless night.

"Are you going to look for a girl to-day?" she asked as he was leaving the house after the breakfast was eaten.

"Oh! I suppose so, but I haven't much hopes of getting one," he answered impatiently. Then seeing the tears in her eyes at the thought of the washing waiting to be done, he kissed her tenderly. "I'll do the best I can, dear; I know you're tired."

"Well, the next one I get I hope mother 'll let me manage her. If Hepsie wouldn't stand her ways of talking about things none of the rest will." After a moment's reflection she added: "I cannot do all this work myself. I'm so tired I'm ready to die."

John slipped his arm about her and said earnestly:

"I'll do all I can to help you with the dinner dishes, but you are not to say one word to mother about this."

It was gently put, but authoritative.

"Then you needn't look for one at all," she said sharply.

John's arm fell from about her and he looked at her in cold astonishment.

"I don't care," she insisted. "I can't keep a girl and have mother looking over every piece of washing that is hung on the line."

"Mother kept girls a long time in her own house," he answered, taking offence at once.

"I don't care; she dealt with a different kind of girls." Then with a sudden illumination, she added: "She didn't have such quantities of work to do, either. If we go on this way we'll have to have help and keep it or we'll have to cut down the farm work." She brightened with the thought. "Let's cut the work down anyhow, dear. I'd have so much an easier time and—and you wouldn't have all those wages to raise every month, and we could live so much more comfortably."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"I don't see but we're living as comfortably as folks usually do," John replied evasively.

"I know, dear, but we have to have the men at meals all the time and—and——"

"Now see here, Elizabeth, don't go and get foolish. A man has to make a living," John said fretfully.

The girl had worked uncomplainingly until her last remnant of strength was gone, and they were neither willing to do the thing which made it possible to keep help, nor to let her do the work as she was able to do it. With it all, however, she tried patiently to explain and arrange. Something had to be done.

"I know you have to make a living, John, and I often think that I must let you do it in your own way, but there are so many things that are getting into a snarl while we try it this way. We don't have much home with strangers at our table every day in the year. We never have a meal alone. I wouldn't mind that, but it makes more work than I am able to do, it is getting you into debt deeper every month to pay their wages, and you don't know how hard it is going to be to pay those debts a few years from now. But that isn't the worst of it as far as I am concerned. I work all the time and you—you aren't satisfied with what I do when I do everything my strength will let me do. I can't do any more than I'm doing either."

"I am satisfied with what you do," he said with evident annoyance at having his actions and words remarked upon. "Besides, you have mother to help you." He had ignored her remarks upon the question of debts, determined to fasten the attention elsewhere.

The little ruse succeeded, for Elizabeth's attention was instantly riveted upon her own hopeless situation.

"It isn't much help to run the girl out and then make it so hard to get another one," she said bitterly.

Instantly she wished she had not said it. It was true, but she wished she could have held it back. John did not realize as she did how hard it was going to be to get another girl. She had not told him of Hepsie's remarks nor of her advice. Elizabeth was not a woman to tattle, and the "old woman" Hepsie had referred to was his mother.

"Don't think I'm hard on her, John. If we could only get another girl I wouldn't care."

She waited for him to speak, and, when he did not do so, asked hopelessly:

"Don't you think we can get another girl pretty soon if we go a good ways off from this neighbourhood?"

"I don't know anything about it, and I don't want to hear anything more about it either," was the ungracious reply.

"I am in the wrong. You will hear no more on either subject."

The tone was earnest. Elizabeth meant what she said. John went from the house without the customary good-bye kiss. We live and learn, and we learn most when we get ourselves thoroughly in the wrong.



CHAPTER XIII

"ENNOBLED BY THE REFLECTED STORY OF ANOTHER'S GOODNESS AND LOVE"

It was on a Saturday, three weeks after Mrs. Hunter's return, that Elizabeth asked to make her first visit with the baby.

"Aunt Susan was here so much while I was sick, John, that I feel that we must go to see them to-morrow."

"Oh, my goodness!" John replied, stepping to the cupboard to put away the pile of plates in his hands. "I'm tired enough to stay at home."

They had just finished washing the supper dishes together, and Elizabeth considered as she emptied the dishpan and put it away. She had been refused so often that she rather expected it, and yet she had thought by the cordiality with which John had always treated Aunt Susan that he would be reasonable about this visit now that she was able, and the baby old enough to go out.

Elizabeth was never clear about a difficulty, nor had her defences well in hand upon the first occasion. With those she loved, and with John in particular, any offence had to be repeated over and over again before she could protect herself. She felt her way slowly and tried to preserve her ideals; she tried to be fair. She could not tell quickly what to do about a situation; she took a long time to get at her own attitudes and understand them, and it took her still longer to get at the real intentions of others. As she brought out her cold-boiled potatoes and began to peel them for breakfast, she reflected that Aunt Susan had come as regularly to see them as if she had always been well treated, until Mrs. Hunter's coming. At that point the visits had dropped off.

"Baby is nearly three months old, and I promised Aunt Susan that I'd take him to see her the first place I took him. We owe it to her, and I'm not going to neglect her any more. We can leave a dinner of cold chicken and pies for the men, and I'll get a hot supper for them when I come home. I'd like to start about ten o'clock."

It sounded so much as if it were all settled that the girl felt that it really was.

"That leaves mother here alone all day, and I'm not going to do it," John returned with equal assurance.

"Mother can go with us. I should want her to do that, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would."

Mrs. Hunter was passing through the room with the broom and dustpan and paused long enough to say pleasantly:

"Don't count on me, children. I'll take care of myself and get the men a hot dinner besides. I'd just as soon."

"We'd like to have you go, mother, and I'm sure Aunt Susan would want us to bring you," Elizabeth replied with a little catch in her breath. If Mrs. Hunter refused to go, John would not take her if she begged on her knees.

"No, I don't want to go. I'll get the dinner though, and you needn't hurry back." She went on upstairs contentedly and with the feeling that she had arranged the matter to everybody's liking.

"Let her get the dinner then," Elizabeth said, exasperated. "I'll leave everything ready for it."

"I shall not go and leave her alone all day. She has a hard enough time out on this farm without getting the feeling that we care as little as that for her comfort. Besides that, the buggy is not mended yet."

"We can go in the lumber wagon. We didn't have a buggy till long after we were engaged," Elizabeth said, not going into the matter of leaving his mother at home, which she knew would be useless.

"I should think you'd want to rest when you did get a chance. You talk all the time about having too much to do," John replied evasively.

"I wouldn't get any rest," Elizabeth replied quickly. "I'd get a dinner—that's what I'd have to do if I stayed at home. I'd be on my feet three solid hours and then have to nurse the baby. That's the rest I'd have."

"The devil!" was the answer she got as John went out.

The weeks flew past, and still Elizabeth served hot dinners and mourned in secret over Susan Hornby's neglected kindness. Aunt Susan had been cheerful as well as discreet during those weeks when she had helped them. She had been so happy over the evident friendliness of John Hunter that she had felt sure that the old cordiality was to be resumed.

After what seemed to Elizabeth endless weeks, a curious circumstance aided her in getting to Aunt Susan's in the end. Mrs. Hunter, who was not greatly concerned about her disappointment, heard constant reference to Mrs. Hornby's assistance at the time of the baby's coming, and knowing that there would be discussion of their neglect to her in the neighbourhood, joined authoritatively in Elizabeth's entreaty the next time it was mentioned, thereby accomplishing through fear of gossip a thing which no amount of coaxing on Elizabeth's part could ever have done, and at last the trip was to be made.

Susan Hornby's home was so unchanged in the year that Elizabeth had been gone that, but for the baby in her arms, she could hardly have realized that she had been away. Aunt Susan sent her to the bedroom with the wraps when they were taken off. It was the same little room the girl had occupied for half that year, the same rag carpet, the same mended rocking chair which had come to grief in the cyclone, and the knitted tidy which the girl herself had made. With the hot tears running down her cheeks the girl-mother threw herself upon the bed and buried her face in the baby's wraps to stifle the cry she was afraid would escape her. In the sanctuary of her girlhood's highest hopes, Elizabeth sobbed out her disappointments and acknowledged to herself that life had tricked her into a sorry network of doubts and unsettled mysteries. For the first time she sunk her pride and let Susan think what she would of her prolonged absence, and went openly to the kitchen to bathe her face in Nathan's familiar tin basin. A sudden suspicion of John's reception at Nathan's hands made it possible to go back to Aunt Susan with a smile on her lips.

Indeed, Elizabeth's suspicions were so far true that they were a certainty. Nathan, by Luther's marriage to a woman the old man suspected of every evil, had cut himself off from every friend. Nathan had been thrown in upon himself and had pondered and nursed his suspicions of all men, and of John Hunter in particular. He finished the milking without offering to go into the house; and John, who had insisted upon coming at night instead of on a Sunday, was obliged to stand around the cow stable and wait, or go to the house alone. He chose the former course and was made happy by the arrival of Jake, who had not known where his employer was going when his team was hitched to the wagon.

"I've just been over to Luther's, Mrs. Hornby," Jake said when they finally stood around Aunt Susan's fire. "Did you know Sadie was sick? Luther's awful good to 'er, but I know she'd be glad t' see a woman body about once in a while."

"Wisht she'd die an' get out of th' way," Nathan Hornby said bitterly. "A body could see Luther once in a while then 'thout havin' 'is words cut up an' pasted together some new way for passin' round."

No one spoke, and Nathan felt called upon to defend his words.

"I don't care! It's a God's pity t' have a woman like that carry off th' best man this country's ever had, an' then fix up every word 'is friends says t' him so's t' make trouble."

Nathan's whole bitter longing for companionship was laid bare. Elizabeth's eyes filled with tears; Elizabeth was lonely also.

The call was a short one. John moved early to go home and there was nothing to do but give way. It was not till the next day that Elizabeth suspected that Nathan's remarks had offended John Hunter, and then in spite of her eagerness to keep the peace between the two men, she laughed aloud. She was also somewhat amused at the insistence on a call upon Sadie which John wanted that she should make. The perfect frankness of his announcement that Luther was a convenient neighbour, and that they must pay neighbourly attention to illness, when he had never encouraged her to go for any other reason, was a new viewpoint from which the young wife could observe the workings of his mind. Something about it subtracted from her faith in him, and in life.

While she was still washing the dinner dishes John came in to discuss the visit. Elizabeth was athrob with the weariness of a half day spent at the ironing table, and to avoid dressing the baby had asked Mrs. Hunter to take care of him.

With no other visible reason but his customary obstinacy, John insisted upon the child being taken.

"I've got to get back early and get the coloured clothes folded down. Every one of the boys had a white shirt and two or three collars this week, so I asked mother to keep him for me," Elizabeth said.

"Now see here," John argued. "Mother 'll fold those clothes and you can just as well take him along and make a decent visit. They're the nicest people in the country, according to some of the neighbours."

Elizabeth's laugh nettled her husband. When he appeared with the wagon, she was ready, with the baby in her arms.

The wind was keen and cold, the laprobes flew and fluttered in derisive refusal to be tucked in.

"Take the buggy in and have it mended the next time you go to town," she said, with her teeth chattering, as they drew near to Luther's home. "I want to go up to see ma before long and it's almost impossible to keep a baby covered on this high seat." She thought a while and then added, "I haven't been home since I was married."

"I shouldn't think you'd ever want to go," John replied ungraciously.

Tears of anger as well as mortification filled her eyes, and her throat would not work. It was to stop gossip as much as to see her mother that the girl desired to make the visit. The world was right: John was not proud of her.

The sight of the "shanty" as they turned the corner near Luther's place brought a new train of thought. Dear, kindly, sweet-souled Luther! The world disapproved of his marriage too. He was coming toward them now, his ragged overcoat blowing about him as he jumped over the ridges made by the plow in turning out the late potatoes he had been digging.

"You carry the baby in for Lizzie, an' I'll tie these horses," he said, beaming with cordiality. "Got caught with Sadie's sickness an' let half th' potatoes freeze 's hard 's brickbats."

It was so cold that Elizabeth did not stand to ask about Sadie, but turned to the house to escape the blast.

"I'll come for you at five if I can get back. I'm going over to see about some calves at Warren's," John said as they went up the path.

"Is that why you insisted that I bring the baby? You needn't have been afraid to tell me; you do as you please anyhow."

"H-s-sh! Here comes Hansen," John Hunter said warningly, and turned back to the wagon, giving the child into Luther's arms at the door.

Luther Hansen cuddled the child warmly to him and without waiting to go in the house raised the white shawl from its sleeping face for a peep at it.

"We lost ours," he said simply.

The house sheltered them from the wind, and Elizabeth stopped and looked up at him in astonishment.

"You don't mean it? I—I didn't know you were expecting a child, Luther. I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."

The expression of sympathy escaped her unconsciously. Elizabeth would always want to know of Luther's joys and sorrows.

A glad little light softened the pain in his face, and he looked at her with a steady gaze, discerning the feeling of sound friendship behind the words.

"I believe you are," he said, expressing the confirmation of a thing he had never doubted. "I ain't askin' you any questions, Lizzie, I just know—that's all."

With something like a glow about his heart, he opened the door of his simple dwelling. He had never doubted her, nor believed the nonsense he had heard about her, but he had just had his faith refreshed. He carried the baby to the one little bedroom of his house, scuffing a wooden rocking chair behind him across the rough floor. He established Elizabeth in it beside Sadie, and then placing the sleeping child in its mother's arms went back to the potato field, hurrying his work to finish before dark. He understood in a measure why this was Elizabeth's first visit to them, and he did not resent it. Luther never resented. He lived his own kindly, industrious life. If people did not like Sadie he accepted it as a fact, but not as a thing to be aggrieved about. He could wait for Sadie to grow, and others must wait also. In the meantime, Luther watched Elizabeth and desired growth for her; her smallest movement was of interest to him. Elizabeth as a mother was a new feature. He remembered the deft way she had nestled the baby to her as he had relinquished it a few moments before, and thought with a sigh, of the cowhide-covered trunk filled with little garments under the bed by which she sat. Not even Sadie knew what the loss of that first child meant to Luther. A new love for women's ways with babies grew up in him as he thought of Elizabeth's cuddling.

In the house, Elizabeth was getting into touch with the young mother who was childless. Sadie, in spite of a determination not to do so, was warming to that touch reluctantly. After all, it was pleasant to be telling Elizabeth about it, and to have her asking as if she wanted to know.

"Yes—I took bad about a week ago," she was saying. "I'd been kind of miserable for several days. I got a fall that last rain we had, an' I didn't seem t' get over it."

"I'd have come sooner if I'd known it," Elizabeth said, thinking of Luther's acceptance of a similar statement. "Jake didn't even tell us last night what was the matter."

"I guess he didn't know. Would you 'a' come if you'd 'a' known, Lizzie?" Before Elizabeth could reply, she continued, "Ma used t' think it'd be kind o' nice for me t' live close t' you, but I knew you wouldn't never come t' see me. I used t' be kind o' jealous cause Luther liked you s' much. I said everything mean I could think of about you, t' him—but law! Luther ain't got no pride. He don't care. He defends you from everybody, whether you come t' see us 'r not."

It was a curious little confession and one Sadie had not intended to make. Something big and sweet in Elizabeth had forced it from her. It embarrassed Elizabeth Hunter, and it held things which could not be discussed, and she turned the subject without answering.

"When did you lose the baby?"

"Oh, it only lived a couple of hours. You see it was too soon an'—an' it wasn't right. Th' doctor didn't expect it t' live as long as it did, but Luther would have it that it could, an' kept 'em a tryin' everything that could be thought of."

Sadie's voice died away gradually and she lay looking out of the window retrospectively: the last two weeks had brought food for much thinking.

"I didn't know, Lizzie, that a man could be as good as Luther. I'd always kind o' hated men, an' I thought I'd have t' fight my way through, like th' rest of th' women, an'—an'—he's that good an' thoughtful of me, an' of everybody else, that I'm clean ashamed of myself half th' time. He nearly had a fit when' he found out that I'd slipped with that wood. 'Twas ironing day, an' th' box got empty—an' then, when th' baby died, it just seemed as if he couldn't stand it."

She looked up at Elizabeth earnestly: "I never heard any one but th' preacher pray out loud, Lizzie, an'—an'—somehow—well," she stumbled, "Luther prayed so sweet, when he see it was gone—I—I ain't thought of much else since. It—it seemed like th' baby'd done something good t' both of us."

The spiteful, pettish face was for the moment ennobled by the reflected glory of another's goodness and love. Elizabeth caught a glimpse of a condition which makes heaven here upon earth. There was the harmony here in the "shanty" such as she coveted and strove in vain to establish in her own home. Of course there would be harmony where Luther Hansen was concerned: Luther was harmony. Ignoring his part in the little drama, she was wise enough to touch the other side of the story in her reply.

"These little ones bring blessings all their own, Sadie," she said, giving the hand on the patchwork quilt a little squeeze.

There was that in the impulsive little touch which was to be a lasting reminder to Sadie Hansen that Elizabeth Hunter responded to the things which were making of her life a different story. They had found common ground, where neither scoffed at the other.

"Did your baby make you feel that way?" she asked earnestly.

* * * * *

When Luther came at five o'clock to say that John was waiting he found them, at peace, with the baby between them.

Luther tucked Elizabeth and her child into the unprotected wagon seat with concern.

"This wind's a tartar. Pull th' covers down tight over its face, Lizzie. What's become of th' buggy, Hunter?"

Luther saw Elizabeth's face harden in a sudden contraction of pain, and glanced across at John, but whatever there was about it that hurt belonged to Elizabeth alone, for John Hunter pulled at the flapping laprobes without seeming to have heard clearly and evidently thinking that the remark was addressed to his wife. Dusk was falling, and Luther watched them drive away with a premonition of trouble as the night seemed to close in about them. He turned his back to the wind and stood humped over, peering through the evening at their disappearing forms. He saw Elizabeth snatch at the corner of the robe as they turned into the main road, and dug his own hands deeper into his pockets with his attention turned from Elizabeth and her possible trouble to that of the child.

"Hope th' little feller don't ketch cold." He turned to the house filled with his vision of a baby being cuddled close in a mother's arms, and with a new understanding of the comfort of such cuddling. His breath flew before him in a frosty stream when he entered the kitchen, and he hastened to build a fire and set the teakettle on to heat. He lighted a lamp and set it on a chair, and also stirred the fire in the little stove in Sadie's room before he went to milk.

"Wisht Lizzie'd come oftener. Wonder why she don't. She don't seem near as stuck-up as she used to. Say, Luther, Lizzie told me th' queerest thing: she says th' way a mother feels before a baby's born makes a difference. She says if a woman's mean before a child comes It'll make th' young one mean too. She told a lot of things that showed it's true, about folks we know? I wonder how she learns everything? Ain't she smart! I wisht she'd come oftener. Say, if I ever get that way again——" The sentence was unfinished.

"Wisht ours 'd 'a' lived," Luther said longingly.

"Did Lizzie's baby make you feel that way too?"

Luther went to milk with a song in his heart. The little word "too" told more than all the discussions they had ever had. Sadie had not been pleased about the coming of the child they had lost.

"If I could get 'em together more," he said wistfully. "It was a good thing t' have 'er see Lizzie an' 'er baby together. I hope th' little Tad don't ketch cold. That laprobe didn't stay tucked in very well."

As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.

"Somethin' hurt Lizzie about th' buggy 'r somethin'—she's too peaked for her, too."

Luther's premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded. The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.

"You may be willing to take that child out again; I'm not," he replied severely.

* * * * *

A bright idea struck Elizabeth's imagination after she had gone to bed that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan's, and Luther Hansen's to a Thanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther's and Aunt Susan's eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured from her husband's knowledge.

Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son's wife in spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she could have made of John's mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about the house. Elizabeth was proud of the home of which she was a part, but her strength was limited since baby's coming, and after looking about her critically decided that there would be no necessity for any more cleaning than the regular weekly amount.

"We'll have to get the cleaning done on Wednesday instead of Friday, but I think that will be all that will be needed. The carpets were put down fresh the week before you came home, and I don't intend to take them up again till spring."

"I think so," Mrs. Hunter agreed, "but You'll have to have the curtains in the dining room washed, and the tidies and pillow-shams done up fresh."

"Now, mother!" Elizabeth exclaimed, "don't begin to lay out work I can't get done. The tidies are not hard, and I could do the shams, but those curtains are not to be thought of. I'd be so tired if I had to go to work and wash all that, after the washing I put on the line to-day, that I just wouldn't be able to get the dinner on the table Thursday. Talking about the dinner, I think we'd better have two turkeys. I can roast two by putting them in the one big pan."

Mrs. Hunter was willing that the younger woman should prove her talent as a cook, but she planned to take some of the necessary things upon her own shoulders, and to take her son into her schemes for brightening things up a bit. Accordingly, the next morning she asked John to help her take the curtains down.

Elizabeth had been so full of her own plans that she had forgotten to tell John's mother that she intended to keep them secret till she had all her preparations made. The next morning when she heard the thud of some one stepping down from a chair, and her husband say: "There you are! How do you happen to be taking the curtains down at this time of the week?" she realized as she had never done before how much afraid of him she really was, for her pulses bounded, and her ears boomed like cannon, long before John had time to appear in the door to inquire who was coming, and why they were to do so.

With a look very much like guilt, Elizabeth told over the names of her proposed guests, but with Mrs. Hunter in the next room she could not tell him why it meant so much to her to ask these people to dine with them.

The customary protest was offered without delay.

"I don't believe I'd do it, dear. Thanksgiving is a day for home folks, not neighbours, and, besides, see all the work it will make."

"The work is just what we choose to make it. If I'd known mother was going to clean house I wouldn't have said anything about it," Elizabeth answered sullenly.

"Sh!" John Hunter said in a low tone and with a look of anger that was direct and full of meaning.

Elizabeth was ready to cry. She was angry. In every move she made she was checkmated; not because it was not a good move, but because it was hers. She could readily have given up any one thing as it came along, but the true meaning and spirit of these interferences were beginning to dawn upon her. However, once more she yielded to the unreasonable wishes of her husband and the dinner was given up. She made no attempt to finish the mincemeat they had planned to chop after dinner, but after putting the baby to sleep threw a shawl about her and slipping out of the house ran to the barn and down the creek in the pasture while John was helping his mother rehang the freshly ironed curtains.

They were only having two meals a day now that the corn was all picked, and dinner came so late in the afternoon that there was already a blaze of sunset colour in the west as she passed around the barn and started down the bank of the stream. The sun had set, but was still reflected on the heaps of billowy gray clouds just above the horizon. It made the snow in front of her a delicate pink. The girl had not got far enough from the house to see a sunset for months. The freshness and keenness of the air, the colours in the sky, the grandeur and sublimity of it all chased away her anger and left her in a mood to reason over her situation. She followed the cow-path down to the bed of the stream and then threaded her way along its winding route for a greater distance than she had ever gone before. A broken willow barred her way after a time, and she climbed up on its swaying trunk and let her feet dangle over the frozen streamlet below. The snow made lighter than usual the early evening and extended the time she could safely stay so far from the house.

The colours faded rapidly from the sky and the bewildered girl returned to her own affairs, which were puzzling enough. Of late she had found herself unable to maintain her enthusiasm. She found herself increasingly irritable—from her standpoint the one thing most to be despised in others and which she had supposed most impossible in herself. There were so many unforeseen possibilities within herself that she devoted her entire attention to her own actions and impulses, and was completely drawn away from the consideration of the motives of others by her struggle with the elemental forces in which she found herself engulfed. The temper aroused by John's objection to her Thanksgiving company had indications in spite of the fact that she had controlled it. Elizabeth knew that she had but barely kept her speech within the limits of kindliness and consideration for Mrs. Hunter, who had not wished to frustrate her plans at all, and she knew that she would be less likely to do so if the offence were repeated. She knew that Mrs. Hunter tried with real honesty of purpose to keep on good terms with her, and yet she also knew that she was increasingly annoyed with whatever she did. There was an element of unfairness in her attitude toward the older woman which alarmed her.

"I'm just like pa, after all," she thought as she swung her feet and looked in a troubled way down at the frozen stream below.

Elizabeth reflected that when Aunt Susan, or Silas, or Luther Hansen came into the house she became instantly her own buoyant, optimistic self: not that she intentionally feigned such feelings for the benefit of her company, but she felt the presence of trust, of faith in herself and her powers. She did not recognize that such trust was necessary to the unfoldment of character, nor even that it was her birthright.

The girl watched the gathering twilight and deliberately let the time pass without attempting to return to the house until compelled to do so by real darkness, realizing that some beneficial thing was happening in her in this free out-of-doors place, for she was less annoyed and more analytical with each breath she drew in it.

"If only I'd take time to do this sort of thing I'd be more as I ought to be," she meditated when she had at last risen to go home. "I won't be like pa! I won't! I won't!" she reiterated many times as she walked back, over the frozen cow-path. "I'll come here every few days. Ma and pa were born to be happy, only they never took time to be."

And though John was cross because the baby had cried in her absence, Elizabeth felt that she had been helped by getting away from him. She accepted her husband's reproaches without reply, and was able to forget them even while they were still issuing from his mouth. She kept her temper down all that week, and though the Thanksgiving invitations were not sent, she cooked the dinner and put as many hours into its concoction as if she had had all the people she had hoped to have about her board to eat it, and she was so sunny and natural as she served it that John did not even guess that she was governing herself consciously. She stayed at home the next Sunday and the next, and John Hunter was unaware that she was endeavouring to surrender herself to his will.

"She'll get over wanting to run somewhere all the time," he told his mother, and Mrs. Hunter, to whom these people were not pleasing, agreed with him, and thought that it was just as well if it were so, not realizing that the girl lived alone in their house and that she might have an attitude toward these people distinctly different from theirs.

This winter, like the preceding one, passed with Elizabeth at home. There was no peace to be had if she thought of going anywhere for any purpose whatever. Elizabeth went nowhere and required few clothes. The cold the child had caught on that first trip to Luther's was sufficient excuse to prevent any further foolishness on the part of its mother. However, a trip to town was in waiting for Elizabeth Hunter and was proposed by John Hunter himself.

There had been a "warm spell" in the month of February and John had asked Elizabeth to help him with the pump in the barnyard, which had been working badly for days. It was Saturday evening, and Jake and the other hired man had been granted time off that day; the pump had refused to work at all after they were gone, and with a hundred cattle waiting for water it was necessary to impress any one available with the duty of helping. Elizabeth was more than willing to help: it meant a couple of hours out of doors. They had worked industriously and their efforts were about crowned with success when Mrs. Hunter came out to them with the baby wrapped in a warm shawl. John tossed aside the extra piece of leather he had cut from the top of an old boot and fitted the round piece in his hand about the sucker.

"Now, mother, you shouldn't bring that child out here; You'll have him sick on our hands again," he said.

"Oh, lots of children go out of doors in winter. I took you out whenever I wanted to, and you've lived to tell the tale," his mother said easily, seating herself on the end of the trough.

"Well, I don't want anything to happen to him for a few days, I can tell you. I want you to keep him and let Elizabeth go in to town with me and sign the mortgage on this eighty, Monday," John replied, examining the valve with great attention.

"Why, I thought this eighty was already mortgaged!" Mrs. Hunter exclaimed.

"Well, it is," John replied uneasily, "but I've got to raise the interest before I can get that bunch of shoats ready to sell, and I've got to do it that way."

He did not look at either of the two women, but kept himself very busy about the rod and sucker he was manipulating.

Mrs. Hunter seldom remarked upon anything that was done about the farm, but this was surprising news. A second mortgage on part of the land! She had just opened her mouth to speak, when she happened to glance across at her daughter-in-law. Elizabeth's face was white. Something in it implored Mrs. Hunter to go away, to leave them to have the matter out together, and the older woman took her cue from it and went with a haste which caused her son to look up from the piston with which he fumbled.

"She's gone to the house; I motioned to her to go," Elizabeth announced. "She don't know much about mortgages, but she knows this won't do. You told me last week that the hogs would be ready in time. My soul alive, John! do you realize what you are doing? This is the home-eighty! What's happened to the hogs?"

"Say, look here! If I want to mortgage this eighty, I'm going to do it. Those hogs are just where it pays to feed them. If I sell now, I'll lose half the profits."

John got up and faced her ready to fight, if fight he must on this question. He had chosen an opportune time to tell it, but he meant to do as he wished about those hogs and the land and whatever else they possessed. He hated to open a discussion, but he did not hate to continue one after he had made the plunge. He had feasible reasons for all that he did.

Elizabeth saw that he meant to insist and she resented the deception he had practised in securing this loan without telling her, but the danger was so great that she could not afford to let her feelings blind her, nor to put the thing in a bad light by seeming to wrangle about it. She looked at him steadily, so steadily, in fact, that John was disconcerted. The work in hand gave excuse for withdrawing his eyes and Elizabeth watched him arrange the knot of the rope so that they could lower the pipe back into the well. The girl did not begin to speak at once: she marshalled her forces and considered what manner of argument she would put forth. She knew that every piece of land they possessed except the Mitchell County pastures was covered with one third of its value in incumbrances. If the interest was hard to meet now, what would it be three years hence? She had come to understand that the man she had married was not a farmer. She helped him lower the long pipe into the well, and watched him try the pump handle to see if the sucker would work. It was slow in drawing, and she filled a small pail from the trough and poured it into the pump head. After a few sputtering strokes the water began to come freely, and then she had to wait for the pumping to stop before she could make herself heard above its rumblings.

John Hunter knew perfectly well that Elizabeth was waiting and prolonged the work till the great trough was full. When it began to overflow and there was no further need for drawing water, he turned abruptly toward the gate where the cattle were. Elizabeth had waited in the frosty air till she was chilled from standing and could not remain for the stock to drink before she had a chance to go to the house.

"I want to talk to you before those cattle come out here," she said, more hurt by his avoidance of her now than she had been by the original deception; he was really ignoring her as a factor in their mutual affairs. "I have to protest against this mortgage, John. We ought to keep a small home free at least, and instead of putting more on this eighty we ought to sell enough of the stuff to pay off on this part. Every farmer in this country has his nose on the interest grindstone, and my life has been spoiled with it ever since I can remember. Please, dear, let's not put a second mortgage on this eighty."