splashing the dishes up and down in the hot soap-suds, till the
old kitchen seemed full of merry bustle. Joel regarded her closely
for two or three minutes, and then went slowly out.

David was up on top of the wood bin in the shed, and tugging at
the box of nails that Ben had put on one of the beams.

"I can't get it down," he said. "Come help me, Joel, do."

But Joel kicked his feet on the woodshed floor. So little David
gave another pull at the box, wavered, and clutched wildly at
the air, and before Joel could speak, came tumbling down, and
after him, the heavy box, spilling the nails as it fell. He lay
quite still, and Joel only stopped to take one look.

"Oh, Polly, Dave's killed, I guess," he screamed, rushing into
the kitchen, his face working fearfully.

Polly stopped her song in mid-air, and turned quite white. "Oh,
no, I guess not," she said with a gasp, as she saw his face.
Then she remembered Phronsie. "Come out here, Joe," and she
gently pushed him out into the little entry.

"I guess I'll go, too," said Phronsie, who had been humming a
soft refrain to Polly's song, and laying down the snarl carefully in
Mamsie's big work-basket she went softly out after them.

"Now, Joel," Polly was saying out of white lips, "don't you
scream. Think of Phronsie, and--"