't
worrying about Pearlie wherever she goes--or whatever she meets--I
ain't worrying."

"You don't worry about anything, John," said Mrs. Watson, in reproof,
as she covered the bread with many wrappings and fixed two chairs to
hold it behind the stove for the night; "you didn't even worry the
night the crop froze, sleepin' and snorin' the whole night through,
with me up every half hour watching the thermometer, and it slippin'
lower and lower, and the pan o' water on the woodpile gettin' its
little slivers of ice around the edge, and when the thermometer went
to thirty, I knew it was all up with the wheat, but do you think I
could wake you--you rolled over with a grunt, leavin' me alone to
think of the two hundred acres gone in the night, after all our hard
work ... and then to have you come down in the mornin', stretchin'
and yawnin', after a good night's sleep, and says you, as cheerful as
could be, 'Cold mornin', Ma!'"

John Watson took his pipe from his mouth, and laughed quietly.

"And what was wrong with that, Ma--sure now it was cold--you said
yourself it was," he said gently.

The boys joined in the laugh, but Mrs. Watson repeated her point.

"Cold it was, sure enough, but think o' me up frettin' and fumin', and
you come down as cheerful as if starvation wasn't starin' us in the
face."

"But we didn't starve, Ma," said Billy, coming to his father's
defense, "the crop was all right for feed, and we did well after all.
You had all your frettin' for nothing."

"It's that way mostly," said John Watson, "I never saw any good yet in
frettin'. Anyway, Ma does enough of it for all of us, so that lets
me out. There's the two kinds of Irish--them that don't fret over
anything--and them that frets over every thing--that's me and you,
Ma--and it works out fine--it runs about even. You've always been so
sure that things were goin' wrong, I've just had to be a little surer
that they wern't. And then of course I knew that night that you would
watch the frost--if there was any watchin' to it."

"John, it is well for you that you have some one to do your watchin',"
said Mrs. Watson. "You're an easy goin' man, John, but I'll say this
for you, that a better natured man never lived."

When all the family had gone to bed, and the last sound had died out
in the house, Pearl stood long at the window and looked out at the
moonlit valley. The warm day had melted the frost from the window, and
when she put out the lamp, the m