"
Back in the kitchen at home Mrs. Bell was waiting for her husband
to bring the horse to the door. She was a slight, dark-eyed
little woman, with thin, vivid-red cheeks. From out of the
swathings in which she had wrapped her bonnet, her face gleamed
sad and troubled. Now and then she sighed heavily.
The cat came to her from under the stove, languidly stretching
himself, and yawning until all the red cavern of his mouth and
throat was revealed. At the moment he had an uncanny resemblance
to Elder Joseph Blewett of White Sands--Roaring Joe, the
irreverent boys called him--when he grew excited and shouted.
Mrs. Bell saw it--and then reproached herself for the sacrilege.
"But it's no wonder I've wicked thoughts," she said, wearily.
"I'm that worried I ain't rightly myself. If he would only tell
me what the trouble is, maybe I could help him. At any rate, I'd
KNOW. It hurts me so to see him going about, day after day, with
his head hanging and that look on his face, as if he had
something fearful on his conscience--him that never harmed a
living soul. And then the way he groans and mutters in his
sleep! He has always lived a just, upright life. He hasn't no
right to go on like this, disgracing his family."
Mrs. Bell's angry sob was cut short by the sleigh at the door.
Her husband poked in his busy, iron-gray head and said, "Now,
mother." He helped her into the sleigh, tucked the rugs warmly
around her, and put a hot brick at her feet.
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