, that "Lottie was a
fool not to make that drummer marry her. She could have, if she'd gone the
right way to work." But the drummer remained persistently absent.

One evening Lem, starting for his sheep-pasture for his last look for the
night, heard someone crying down by the river and then, as he paused to
listen, heard it no more. He jumped from the bridge without stopping to
set down his lantern, knowing well the swiftness of the water, and caught
the poor cowardly thing as she came, struggling and gasping, down with the
current. He took her home and gave her dry clothes of his mother's. Then
leaving the scared and repentant child by his hearth, he set out on foot
for the minister's house and dragged him back over the rough country
roads.

When Ma'am Warren awoke the next morning, Lem did not instantly answer her
imperious call, as he had done for so many years. Instead, a red-eyed girl
in one of Mrs. Warren's own nightgowns came to the door and said
shrinkingly: "Lem slept in the barn last night. He give his bed to me; but
he'll be in soon. I see him fussin' around with the cow."

Ma'am Warren stared, transfixed with a premonition of irremediable evil.
"What you doin' here?" she demanded, her voice devoid of expression
through stupefaction.

The girl held down her head. "Lem and I were married last night," she
said.

Then Mrs. Warren found her voice.

When Lem came in it was to a scene of the furious wrangling which was
henceforth to fill his house.

"... to saddle himself with such trash as you!" his mother was saying
ragingly.

His wife answered in kind, her vanity stung beyond endurance. "Well, you
can be sure he'd never have got him a wife any other way! Nobody but a
girl hard put to it would take up with a drivel-headed fool like Lem
Warren!"

And then the bridegroom appeared at the door and both women turned their
attention to him.

When the baby was born, Lottie was very sick. Lem took care of his mother,
his wife, and the new baby for weeks and weeks. It was at lambing-time,
and his flock suffered from lack of attention, although as much as he
dared he left his sick women and tended his ewes. He ran in debt, too, to
the grocery-stores, for he could work very little and earned almost
nothing. Of course the neighbors helped out, but it was no cheerful
morning's work to care for the vitriolic old woman, and Lottie was too
sick for anyone but Lem to handle. We did pass the baby around from house
to