sat, by saying,
"Seems as though this weather was just made for us, don't it, father?"

The old man stirred uneasily in his chair. "I dun'no'--seems sometimes to
me as though I'd ruther have winter come and be done with it. If we've got
to go as soon as cold weather sets in, we might as well go and have it
over with. As 'tis, I keep on saying good-by in my mind to things and
folks every minute, and then get up in the morning to begin it all again.
This afternoon I was down the river where I saved Hiram's life when he was
a little fellow--the old black whirl-hole. I got to thinking about that
time, I never was real sure till then I wouldn't be a coward if it come
right down _to_ it. Seems as though I'd been more of a man ever since.
It's been a real comfort to me to look at that whirl-hole, and that
afternoon it come over me that after this there wouldn't be a single thing
any more to remind us of anything _good_ or bad, we've ever done. It'll be
most as if we hadn't lived at all. I just felt as though I _couldn't_ go
away from everything and everybody I've ever known down to Hiram's stuffy
little flat. And yet I suppose we are real lucky to have such a good son
as Hiram now the others are all gone. I dun'no' what we'd do if 'tweren't
for him."

"Do!" cried his wife bitterly. "We could go on living right in this valley
where we belong, if 'twas only in the poor-house!"

The old man answered reasonably, as though trying to convince himself,
"Well, I suppose it's really flying in the face of Providence to feel so.
The doctor says your lungs ain't strong enough to stand another of our
winters in the mountains, fussing over stove fires, and zero weather and
all, and I'm so ailing I probably wouldn't last through, either. He says
it's a special dispensation that we've got such a nice place to go where
there's steam heat, and warm as summer, day and night."

"Nathaniel!" exclaimed his wife, attempting to turn her bulky body toward
him in the energy of her protest, "how can you talk so! We've visited
Hiram and we know what an awful place he lives in. I keep a-seeing that
little narrow room that's to be all the place you and I'll have, with the
one window that gets flapped by the wash of the Lord knows who, and that
kitchen as big as the closet to my bedroom here, and that long narrow
hall--why, it's as much as ever I can walk down that all without sticking
fast--and Hiram's queer Dutch wife--"

She stopped, silenced by the