h cows and sheep--"feller-feelin," his mother said
scornfully, watching him feed a sick ewe--and he had here, even in
comparison with his fellow-men, a fair degree of success. It was indeed
the foundation of what material prosperity he ever enjoyed. A farmer,
short of cash, paid him one year with three or four ewes and a ram. He
worked for another farmer to pay for the rent of a pasture and had, that
first year, as everybody admitted, almighty good luck with them. There
were several twin lambs born that spring and everyone lived. Lem used to
make frequent night visits during lambing-time to the pasture to make sure
that all was well.

I remember as a little girl starting back from some village festivity late
one spring night and seeing a lantern twinkle far up on the mountainside.
"Lem Warren out fussin' with his sheep," some one of my elders remarked.
Later, as we were almost home, we saw the lantern on the road ahead of us
and stopped the horses, country-fashion, for an interchange of salutation.
Looking out from under the shawl in which I was wrapped, I saw his tall
figure stooping over something held under his coat. The lantern lighted
his weather-beaten face and the expression of his eyes as he looked down
at the little white head against his breast.

"You're foolish, Lem," said
my uncle. "The ewe won't own it if you take it away so long the first
night."

"I--I--know," stuttered Lem, bringing out the words with his usual
difficulty; "but it's mortal cold up on the mounting for little fellers!
I'll bring him up as a cosset."

The incident reminded me vaguely of something I had read about, and it has
remained in my memory.

After we drove on I remember that there were laughing speculations about
what language old Ma'am Warren would use at having another cosset brought
to the house. Not that it could make any more work for her, since Lem did
all that was done about the housekeeping. Chained to her chair by her
paralyzed legs, as she was, she could accomplish nothing more than to sit
and cavil at the management of the universe all day, until Lem came home,
gave her her supper, and put her to bed.

Badly run as she thought the world, for a time it was more favorable to
her material prosperity than she had ever known it. Lem's flock of sheep
grew and thrived. For years nobody in our valley has tried to do much with
sheep because of dogs, and all Lem's neighbors told him that some fine
morning he would find his f