I'll take a look at the woods first," said David; "and then I want to
make a place in the stable for the sheep, father. They must come under
shelter to-night I'll fix new stalls for the horses inside where we
used to have the corn crib. The cows can go where the horses have been,
and the sheep can have the shed of the cows: it's better than nothing.
I've been wanting to do this ever since I came home from college."

A thoughtless, unfortunate remark, as connected with that shabby,
desperate idea of finding shelter for the stock--fresh reminder of the
creeping, spreading poverty. His father made no rejoinder; and having
finished his breakfast in silence, left the table.

His mother, looking across her coffeecup and biscuit at David, without
change of expression inquired,--

"Will you get that hen?"

"WHAT hen, mother?"

"I told you last night the cook wanted one of the old hens for soup
to-day. Will you get it?"

"No, mother; I will not get the hen for the cook; the cook will
probably get the hen for me."

"She doesn't know the right one."

"But neither do I."

"I want the blue dorking."

"I have a bad eye for color; I might catch something gray."

"I want the dorking; she's stopped laying."

"Is that your motive for taking her life? It would be a terrible
principle to apply indiscriminately!"

"The cook wants to know how she is to get the vegetables out of the
holes in the garden to-day--under all this ice."

"How would she get the vegetables out of the garden under all this ice
if there were no one on the place but herself? I warrant you she'd have
every variety."

"It's a pity we are not able to hire a man. If we could hire a man to
help her, I wouldn't ask you. It's hard on the cook, to make her suffer
for our poverty."

"A little suffering in that way will do her a world of good," said
David, cheerily.

His mother did not hesitate, provocation or no provocation, to sting
and reproach him in this way.

She had never thought very highly of her son; her disappointment,
therefore, over his failure at college had not been keen. Besides,
tragical suffering is the sublime privilege of deep natures: she
escaped by smallness. Nothing would have made her very miserable but
hunger and bodily pains. Against hunger she exercised ceaseless
precautions; bodily pains she had none. The one other thing that could
have agitated her profoundly was the idea that she would be compelled
to leave Kentucky. It was h