for. He tried the bed, and found it hard, but of straw, and not the
feathers he had dreaded; while the boy looked into the water-pitcher to
see if it was full; and then went out without any form of goodnight.

Westover would have expected to wash in a tin basin at the back door, and
wipe on the family towel, but all the means of toilet, such as they were,
he found at hand here, and a surprise which he had felt at a certain
touch in the cooking renewed itself at the intelligent arrangements for
his comfort. A secondary quilt was laid across the foot of his bed; his
window-shade was pulled down, and, though the window was shut and the air
stuffy within, there was a sense of cleanliness in everything which was
not at variance with the closeness.

The bed felt fresh when he got into it, and the sweet breath of the
mountains came in so cold through the sash he had lifted that he was glad
to pull the secondary quilt up over him. He heard the clock tick in some
room below; from another quarter came the muffled sound of coughing; but
otherwise the world was intensely still, and he slept deep and long.




VI.

The men folks had finished their breakfast and gone to their farm-work
hours before Westover came down to his breakfast, but the boy seemed to
be of as much early leisure as himself, and was lounging on the threshold
of the back door, with his dog in waiting upon him. He gave the effect of
yesterday's cleanliness freshened up with more recent soap and water. At
the moment Westover caught sight of him, he heard his mother calling to