, an' we'll
have you in bed in two shakes. There now--them covers'll be too heavy, I
'spect, but you kin throw 'em off if you don't want 'em. Jest keep that
light. I'll git another downstairs. Good-night. Oh, yes! Jake's gone for
th' doctor, you say? Started an hour an' a half ago? Guess 'e ain't there
yet--seven mile you know. Well, good-night!"

Silas stumbled down the steep stairs.

"Liza Ann, it's come! Pore little woman!"

He got back into bed and lay so still that his wife thought him asleep.
"Pore child!" she heard him say just as she was drifting off to dreamland.
An hour passed. An hour and a half. There was the sound of wheels.

"That's th' doctor, Liza Ann." There was no reply.

The old man fidgeted for fifteen minutes more; he had grown nervous. He
slid out of the bed quietly and went to the barn.

"Thought I heard a noise," he told himself by way of excuse for his
action. "Wonder if Old Queen's loose?" He felt his way along the manger
carefully. Unaccustomed to midnight visitors, Queen snorted and shrank
from his hand when he touched her.

"Whoa, there! You needn't be so blamed 'fraid--nothin's goin' t' hurt you.
You ain't a woman."

Silas found a nail-keg and sat down on it across from the nibbling horses,
and thought and waited.

"He's there by this time," he murmured presently. "Wisht they'd 'a' sent
for Liza Ann. No, I guess it's better not. She wouldn't know what t' do,
havin' no experience."

He debated with himself as to whether he should go back to bed or not.

"Couldn't sleep," he concluded. "Lord! how long the nights is when a
feller's awake!"

The horses ate on uninterruptedly and the soft breeze stole through the
old barn, while everything in nature was indicative of peace except the
old man, whose mind worked relentlessly on the situation of the young wife
whose certain suffering racked him almost as much as if he had stood in
its presence.

"Gosh-a-livin's!" he exclaimed as a new thought struck him. "I wonder
which one of 'em Jake got. Now that young Doc Stubbins ain't got no more
sense 'n a louse. I ought t' 'a' told John an' I forgot. Lord! Lord! th'
chances th' poor critters have t' take!"

Mrs. Chamberlain was awakened in the gray light of morning as her husband
crept shivering into bed.

"Where you been?" she asked.

"Out t' th' barn. Heard a noise an' thought I'd better look into it," was
Silas's reply.

* * * * *

As the