the chicken coop?" For it was while this delightful work was under way
that it, and "talk," came to an abrupt end.

The shingling, begun joyously by the big boy and the little girl on
Monday, promised several delightfully busy mornings.... Of course the
setting out for Mercer had been postponed; there was no possibility of
moving Eleanor for the present; so Maurice's "business career," as he
called it, with grinning pomposity, had to be delayed--Eleanor turned
white at the mere suggestion of convalascing at Green Hill without him!
Consequently Maurice, when not worshiping his wife, had nothing to do,
and Edith had seized the opportunity to make him useful.... "We'll
shingle my henhouse," she had announced. Maurice liked the scheme as
much as she did. The September air, the smell of the fresh shingles, the
sitting with one leg doubled under you, and the other outstretched on
the hot slope of the roof, the tap-tapping of the hammers, the bossing
of Edith, the trying to talk of Eleanor, and thunderstorms, while you
hold eight nails between your lips; then the pause while Edith climbs
down the ladder and runs to the kitchen for hot cookies; all these
things would be a delightful occupation for any intelligent person!

"It'll take three mornings to do it," Edith said, importantly; and
Maurice said:

"It will, because you keep putting the wrong end up! I wish Eleanor was
well enough to do it," he said--and then burst into self-derisive
chuckles: "Imagine Eleanor straddling that ridgepole! It would scare her
stiff!"

It was after this talk that Maurice "backed out" on the job--but Edith
never knew why. She saw no connection between the unfinished roof, and