s trucks to take it back. He claimed that he had given it with
the understanding that John was going to die. John had not fulfilled
his share of the contract, and Sam felt that his generosity had been
misplaced.

John was cutting wood beside his dwelling when Sam arrived with his
trucks, and accused him of obtaining goods under false pretences. John
was a man of few words and listened attentively to Sam's reasoning.
From the little window of the caboose came the discordant wail of a
very young infant, and old Sam felt his claims growing more and more
shadowy.

John took the pipe from his mouth and spat once at the woodpile. Then,
jerking his thumb toward the little window, he said briefly:

"Twins. Last night."

Sam Motherwell mounted his trucks and drove away. He knew when he was
beaten.

The house had received additions on every side, until it seemed to
threaten to run over the edge of the lot, and looked like a section of
a wrecked freight train, with its yellow refrigerator car.

The snow had drifted up to the windows, and entirely over the little
lean-to that had been erected at the time that little Danny had added
his feeble wail to the general family chorus.

But the smoke curled bravely up from the chimney into the frosty air,
and a snug pile of wood by the "cheek of the dure" gave evidence of
John's industry, notwithstanding his dislike of the world's best
literature.

Inside the floor was swept and the stove was clean, and an air of
comfort was over all, in spite of the evidence of poverty. A great
variety of calendars hung on the wall. Every store in town it seems had
sent one this year, last year and the year before. A large poster of
the Winnipeg Industrial Exhibition hung in the parlour, and a
Massey-Harris self-binder, in full swing, propelled by three maroon
horses, swept through a waving field of golden grain, driven by an
adipose individual in blue shirt and grass-green overalls. An enlarged
picture of John himself glared grimly from a very heavy frame, on the
opposite wall, the grimness of it somewhat relieved by the row of
Sunday-school "big cards" that were stuck in around the frame.

On the afternoon that Mrs. Watson had received the uplifting talk on
motherhood, and Mrs. Francis had entered it in the little red book,
Pearlie Watson, aged twelve, was keeping the house, as she did six days
in the week. The day was too cold for even Jimmy to be out, and so all
except the three eldest boys