joy of their light and warmth, when steaming coffee and the hastily fetched
food had been served to the others, and the little wife lay quietly for the
moment, the two elders talked together outside where a corner of the cabin
cut off the driving sleet. Then Sammy was included, and another council was
held, this time of three.

No. He would not budge. That was _his_ wife. A fellow that was man enough
to have a wife ought to be man enough to take keer of her. He wasn't going
to have his child born in the house of charity. There was no thoroughfare.
Sammy was allowed to withdraw, and the council of two was resumed. As a
result of its deliberations, Pap John drove away through the darkness and
the sleet. By midnight two trips had been made between the big double log
house at the Overholt place and the wretched cabin on The Bench, and all
that Sammy would suffer to be brought to them or done for them had been
brought and done. The cabin was, in a very humble way, inhabitable. There
was food and a small provision for the immediate present. And here, upon
that wild March night of screaming wind and sleet, and with only Aunt
Cornelia as doctor and nurse, Huldy's child was born.

And now a new order of things began.

Sammy's energies appeared to be devoted to the thwarting of Pap Overholt's
care and benefits. There should be no cow brought to the cabin; and so Pap
John, who was getting on in years now, and had long since given up hard,
active work, hastened from his bed at four o'clock in the morning, milked a
cow, and carried the pail of fresh milk to Huldy and the baby, furtively,
apologetically. The food, the raiment, everything had to be smuggled into
the house little by little, explained, apologized for. The land on The
Bench was rich alluvial soil. Sammy, in his first burst of independence,
ploughed it (borrowing mule and plough from a neighbor--the one neighbor