The stricken girl fastened her eyes upon his in dumb pain and protest. She
said nothing, the wound was too deep; only her lips quivered pitifully and
the tears ran down upon the pillow.

"Now, now, honey, don't ye go to fret that-a-way. W'y, Cornely, ye was made
for a mother; the Lord made ye for such--an' do ye 'low 'at He don't know
what He's a-gwine to do with the work of His hands? 'For mo' air the
children of the desolate'--don't ye know Scripter says?--than of them that
has many. Lord love ye, honey, girl, you'll be mother to a minny and a
minny. They air a-comin'; the Lord's a-sendin' 'em. W'y, honey,--you and
John will have children gathered around you--"

The one cry broke forth from Cornelia which she ever uttered through all
her long grief of childlessness: "Oh, but, Dr. Pastergood, I wanted
mine--my own--and John's! Oh, I reckon it was idolatry the way I felt in my
heart; I thought, to have a little trick-bone o' my bone, flesh o' my
flesh--look up at me with John's eyes--" A sob choked her utterance, and
never again was it resumed.

In the years that followed, the pair--already come to be called Pap
Overholt and Aunt Cornely--well fulfilled the old doctor's prophecy. The
very next year after their baby was laid away, John's older brother, Jeff,
lost his wife, and the three little children Mandy left were brought at
once to them, remaining in peace and welfare for something over a year
(Jeff was a circumspect widower), making the place blithe with their
laughter and their play. Then their father married, and they were taken to
the new home. He was an Overholt too, and shared that powerful paternal
instinct with John. Three times this thing happened. Three times Jeff
buried a wife, and the little Jeff Overholts, with recruited ranks, were