nt to go to the pond for, like to know?" Jerome
looked around at him fiercely.

"I didn't know but he might have fell in the pond; it's pretty near."

"I'd like to know what you think my father would jump in the pond
for?" Jerome demanded.

"Lord, I didn't say he jumped in. I said fell in."

"You know he couldn't have fell in. You know he would have had to
gone in of his own accord. I'll let you know my father wa'n't the man
to do anything like that, Jake Noyes!" The boy actually shook his
puny fist in the man's face. "Say it again, if ye dare!" he cried.

"Lord!" said Jake Noyes, with half-comical consternation. He screwed
up one blue eye after a fashion he had--people said he had acquired
it from dropping drugs for the doctor--and looked with the other at
the boy.

"Say it again an' I'll kill ye, I will!" cried Jerome, his voice
breaking into a hoarse sob, and was off.

"Be ye crazy?" Jake Noyes called after him. He stood staring at him a
minute, then went into the house on a run.

Jerome ran to the place where he had left his father's team, untied
the horse, climbed up on the seat, and drove home. He could not go
fast; the old horse could proceed no faster than a walk with a load.
When he came in sight of home he saw a blue flutter at the gate. It
was Elmira's shawl; she was out there watching. When she saw the team
she came running down the road to meet it. "Where's father?" she
cried out. "Jerome, where's father?"

"Dun'no'," said Jerome. He sat high above her, holding the reins. His
pale, set face looked over her head.

"Jerome--haven't you--seen--father?"

"No."

Elmira burst out with a great wail. "Oh, Jerome, where's father?
Jerome, where is he? Is he killed? Oh, father, father!"

"Keep still," said Jerome. "Mother 'll hear you."

"Oh, Jerome, where's father?"

"I tell you, hold your tongue. Do you want to kill mother, too?"

Poor little Elmira, running alongside the team, wept convulsively.
"Elmira, I tell you to keep still," said Jerome, in such a voice that
she immediately choked back her sobs.

Jerome drew up the wood-team at the gate with a great creak. "Stand
here 'side of the horse a minute," he said to Elmira. He swung
himself off the load and went up the path to the house. As he drew
near the door he could hear his mother's chair. Ann Edwards, crippled
as she was, managed, through some strange manipulation of muscles, to
move herself in her rocking-chair all about the house. Now