nd turned the wooden button of the door. He did not look at
her, nor did he speak again, and when she heard his deep, regular
breathing from the bedroom she slipped in softly, made ready for bed,
and lay down beside him.

She slept very little that night. He seemed to be a stranger, because
there had been outward division between them; and yet, curiously, she
felt nearer to him because she might have hurt him, and the jealous
partisanship within her kept prompting her to a more tumultuous
good-will, a warmer service.

Next morning, when Hermie had left them at the breakfast-table, and gone
silently to his tasks, his mother leaned across the table as if, for
some reason, she had to attract her husband's attention before speaking
to him. He was just taking the last swallow of coffee, and now he set
down his cup with decision, and moved away his plate. She knew what the
next step would be. He would push back his chair, clear his throat, and
then he would be gone.

"Myron!" she said. She spoke as something within Myron remembered the
school-teacher speaking, when she called him to the board. The
something within him responded to it, and without knowing why, he
straightened and looked attentive. "You noticed Hermie, didn't you?" she
adjured him. "You noticed he didn't have a word to say for himself, and
he wouldn't look neither of us in the face?"

"What's he been up to?" Myron queried, with his ready frown. "He done
somethin' out o' the way?"

"No, he ain't. I should think you'd be ashamed to hint such a thing,
Myron Dill, your own boy, too! All he's done is to stay here, and work
his fingers to the bone, and no thanks for it, and he's right down
discouraged. I know how the boy feels. Myron, I want you should do
somethin'. I want you should do it now."

Myron gave his chair the expected push, but he still sat there.

"Well," he said, "what is it? I've got to be off down to the
medderlands."

"I want you should make over the Turnbull place to Hermie, and have him
fetch Annie there as soon as ever she'll come, and let him farm it
without if or but from you and me."

Myron was on his feet. He looked portentously large and masterful.

"You better not think o' packin' the chiny," he said, in his ordinary
tone of generalship. "We can set it into baskets with a mite o' hay,
and it'll get as fur as that without any breakages."

His wife slipped out of her chair, and went round the table to him. She
laid a hand on his