zie an' 'er baby together. I hope th' little Tad
don't ketch cold. That laprobe didn't stay tucked in very well."

As he rose from milking the last cow, his mind went back to his visitors.

"Somethin' hurt Lizzie about th' buggy 'r somethin'--she's too peaked for
her, too."

Luther's premonitions about the Hunter baby were only too well founded.
The cold was not serious, but there was a frightened skirmish for hot
water and lubricants before morning. The hoarse little cough gave way
under the treatment, but the first baby's first cold is always a thing of
grave importance to inexperienced parents, and Elizabeth knew that her
chances of getting to go home, or any other place, that winter, were
lessened. Her growing fear of neighbourhood criticism outgrew her fear of
refusal, however, and at the end of the next week she reminded her husband
that she had planned to take the child to see her mother.

"You may be willing to take that child out again; I'm not," he replied
severely.

* * * * *

A bright idea struck Elizabeth's imagination after she had gone to bed
that night. Why not ask her own family, the Chamberlains, Aunt Susan's,
and Luther Hansen's to a Thanksgiving dinner? She was so elated by the
idea that she could hardly get to sleep at all, and before she could
settle herself to rest she had killed in her imagination the half dozen or
more turkeys she had raised that season. A big dinner given to those who
could act as mouthpieces would silence a lot of talk; also, it would take
away a certain questioning look the girl feared in Luther's and Aunt
Susan's eyes. The latter was the sorest point of her married life, and the
conviction that they were thinking much worse things than were true did
not make her any more comfortable. All Sunday she planned, and Sunday
night went to bed with the first secret thought she had ever harboured
from her husband's knowledge.

Mrs. Hunter entered into the plan with zest when on Monday afternoon it
became necessary to tell her. She had begun to love her son's wife in
spite of her family history. Had Elizabeth known how to manage it she
could have made of John's mother a comfortable ally, but Elizabeth, with
characteristic straightforwardness, sought no alliance except the natural
one with her husband. The two women planned the articles to be served in
the dinner, and then turned to the discussion of other preparations about
the house.