e had done this so long that even
the little ones were startled when he said, looking straight at her:

"Say, what are you going to do about that roof?"

Mrs. Miner turned her large gray eyes upon him in sudden confusion.
"Excuse me, Tom, I didn't----"

"I said 'What you goin' t' do with that roof?'" he repeated brutally.

"What roof?" she asked timidly.

"What roof?" he repeated after her. "Why, the barn, of course! It's
leakin' and rottin' my oats. It's none o' my business," he went on, his
voice containing an undercurrent of vicious insult. "Only I thought
you'd like to know it's worse than ever. You can do as you like about
it," he said again, and there was a peculiar tone in his voice, as if,
by using that tone, he touched her upon naked nerves somewhere. "I guess
I can cover the oats up."

A stranger would not have known what it all meant, and yet there was
something in what he said that made his wife turn white. But she
answered quietly:

"I'll send word to the carpenter this forenoon. I'm sorry," she went
on, the tears coming to her eyes. She turned away and looked out of the
window, while he ate on indifferently. At last she turned with a sudden
impulse: "O Tom, why can't we be friends again? For the children's sake,
you ought to----"

"Oh, shut up!" he snarled. "Good God! Can't you let a thing rest? Suits
me well enough. I ain't complainin'. So, just shut up."

He rose with a slam and went out. The two children sat with hushed
breath. They knew him too well to cry out.

Mrs. Miner sat for a long time at the table without moving. At last she
rose and went sighfully at work. "Morty, I want you to run down to Mr.
Wilber's and ask him to come up and see me about some work." She stood
at the window and watched the boy as he stepped lightly down the road.
"How much he looks like his father, in spite of his sunny temper!" she
thought, and it was not altogether a pleasant thing to think of, though
she did not allow such a thought to take definite shape.

The young carpenter whom Wilber sent to fill Mrs. Miner's order walked
with the gay feet of youth as he passed out of the little town toward
the river. When he came to the bridge, he paused and studied the scene
with slow, delighted eyes. The water came down over its dam with a leap
of buoyant joy, as if leaping to freedom. Over the dam it lay in a quiet
pool, mirroring every bud and twig. Below, it curved away between low
banks, with bushes growing to th