ened and Canute stood before her, white as a
snow drift.

"What is it?" he asked kindly.

"I am cold," she faltered.

He went out and got an armful of wood and a basket of cobs and filled
the stove. Then he went out and lay in the snow before the door.
Presently he heard her calling again.

"What is it?" he said, sitting up.

"I'm so lonesome, I'm afraid to stay in here all alone."

"I will go over and get your mother." And he got up.

"She won't come."

"I'll bring her," said Canute grimly.

"No, no. I don't want her, she will scold all the time."

"Well, I will bring your father."

She spoke again and it seemed as though her mouth was close up to the
key-hole. She spoke lower than he had ever heard her speak before, so
low that he had to put his ear up to the lock to hear her.

"I don't want him either, Canute,--I'd rather have you."

For a moment she heard no noise at all, then something like a groan.
With a cry of fear she opened the door, and saw Canute stretched in the
snow at her feet, his face in his hands, sobbing on the doorstep.

Eric Hermannson's Soul

It was a great night at the Lone Star schoolhouse--a night when the
Spirit was present with power and when God was very near to man. So
it seemed to Asa Skinner, servant of God and Free Gospeller. The
schoolhouse was crowded with the saved and sanctified, robust men
and women, trembling and quailing before the power of some mysterious
psychic force. Here and there among this cowering, sweating multitude
crouched some poor wretch who had felt the pangs of an awakened
conscience, but had not yet experienced that complete divestment of
reason, that frenzy born of a convulsion of the mind, which, in the
parlance of the Free Gospellers, is termed "the Light." On the floor
before the mourners' bench lay the unconscious figure of a man in whom
outraged nature had sought her last resort. This "trance" state is the
highest evidence of grace among the Free Gospellers, and indicates a
close walking with God.

Before the desk stood Asa Skinner, shouting of the mercy and vengeance
of God, and in his eyes shone a terrible earnestness, an almost
prophetic flame. Asa was a converted train gambler who used to run
between Omaha and Denver. He was a man made for the extremes of life;
from the most debauched of men he had become the most ascetic. His was a
bestial face, a face that bore the stamp of Nature's eternal injustice.
The forehead was low,