cookin' f'r _him_, ought'o be enough f'r one day! Sadie, you
let him drink now'r I'll slap your head off, you hateful thing! Why
can't you behave, when you know I'm jest about dead." She was weeping
now, with nervous weakness. "Where's y'r pa?" she asked after a
moment, wiping her eyes with her apron.

One of the group, the one cuffed last, sniffled out, in rage and
grief:--

"He's in the cornfield,--where'd ye s'pose he was?"

"Good land! why don't the man work all night? Sile, you put that
dipper in that milk agin, an' I'll whack you till your head'll swim!
Sadie, le' go Pet, an' go 'n get them turkeys out of the grass 'fore
it gits dark! Bob, you go tell y'r dad if he wants the rest o' them
cows milked, he's got 'o do it himself. I jest can't, and what's more
I _won't_," she ended rebelliously.

Having strained the milk and fed the children, she took some skimmed
milk from the cans and started to feed the calves bawling strenuously
behind the barn. The eager and unruly brutes pushed and struggled to
get into the pails all at once, and in consequence spilt nearly all of
the milk on the ground. This was the last trial,--the woman fell down
on the damp grass and moaned and sobbed like a crazed thing. The
children stood around like little partridges, looking at her in
silence, till at last the little one began to wail. Then the mother
rose wearily to her feet, and walked slowly back towards the house.

She heard Burns threshing his team at the well, with the sound of
oaths. He was tired, hungry, and ill-tempered, but she was too
desperate to care. His poor, overworked team did not move quick enough
for him, and his extra long turn in the corn had made him dangerous.
His eyes gleamed from his dust-laid face.

"Supper ready?" he growled.

"Yes, two hours ago."

"Well, I can't help it! That devilish corn is getting too tall to plow
again, and I've got 'o go through it to-morrow or not at all. Cows
milked?"

"Part of 'em."

"How many?"

"Three."

"Hell! Which three?"

"Spot, and Brin, and Cherry."

"_Of_ course! kept the three worst ones. I'll be damned if I milk 'm
to-night. I don't see why you play out jest the nights I need ye
most--" here he kicked a child out of the way. "Git out 'o that! Haint
ye got no sense? I'll learn ye--"

"Stop that, Sim Burns!" cried the woman, snatching up the child.
"You're a reg'lar ol' hyeny,--that's what you are--" she added
defiantly, roused at last from her lethargy