Day by day Wade was growing weaker, and it was Mrs. Wade who
helped put in the crop, borrowing a plow, harrow, and extra team,
and repaying the loan with the use of their own horses and wagon.
Luck was with their wheat, which soon waved green. It seemed one
of life's harsh jests that now, when the tired, ill-nourished
baby had fretted his last, old Brindle, waxing fat and sleek on
the wheat pasture, should give more rich cream than the Wades
could use. "He could have lived on the skimmed milk we feed to
the pigs," thought Martin.

In the Spring he went with his father into Fallon, the nearest
trading point, to see David Robinson, the owner of the local
bank. By giving a chattel mortgage on their growing wheat, they
borrowed enough, at twenty per cent, to buy seed corn and a plow.
It was Wade's last effort. Before the corn was in tassel, he had
been laid beside Benny.

Martin, who already had been doing a man's work, now assumed a
man's responsibilities. Mrs. Wade consulted more and more with
him, relied more and more upon his judgment. She was immensely
proud of him, of his steadiness and dependability, but at rare
moments, remembering her own normal childhood, she would think
with compunction: "It ain't right. Young 'uns ought to have some
fun. Seems like it's makin' him too old for his age." She never
spoke of these feelings, however. There were no expressions of
tenderness in the Wade household. She was doing her best by her
children and they knew it. Even Nellie, child that she was,
understood the grimness of the battle before them.