apped old Billy. "A grandson! I got a grandson, an' no
person told me afore? Not even that there sneak Sam, cuss him! He
always was too consarned mean to live. A grandson? I'm a-goin' over
termorrer, sure's I'm alive."

"No use for you to go, Billy," said Mrs. Norris, with marvellous
diplomacy for such a simple, unworldly farmer's wife to suddenly
acquire. "Sammy wouldn't let you set foot on his place. He wouldn't
let you put an eye or a finger on that precious baby--not for the
whole earth."

"What! Not _me_, the little chap's _grandfather_?" blurted old
Billy in a rage. "I'm a-goin' to see that baby, that's all there
is to it. I tell yer, I'm a-goin'."

"No use, father; you'll only make things worse," sighed Sam's
mother, plaintively; but in her heart laughter gurgled like a
spring. To the gift of diplomacy Mrs. Norris was fast adding the
art of being an actress. "If you go there Sam'll set the dog on
you. I _know_ he will, from the way he was talking," she concluded.

"Oh! got a _dog_, have they? Well, I bet they've got no _cow_,"
sneered Billy. Then after a meaning pause: "I say Marthy, _have_
they got a cow?"

"No," replied Mrs. Norris, shortly.

"_No cow_, an' a sick woman and a baby--_my_ grandchild--in the
house? Now ain't that jes' like that sneak Sam? They'll jes' kill
that baby atween them, they're that igner'nt. Hev they got enny
milk fer them two babbling kids, Della an' the baby--my
grandchild?"

"No!" snapped Mrs. Norris, while through her mind echoed some
terrifying lines she had heard as a child:

"All liars dwell with him in hell,
And many more who cursed and swore."

"An' there's that young Shorthorn of ours, Marthy. Couldn't we
spare her?" he asked with a pathetic eagerness. "We've got eight
other cows to milk. Can't we spare her? If you think Sam'll set the
dog on _me_, I'll have her driv over in the mornin'. Jim'll take
her."

"I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it," remarked
Mrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir.

* * * * *

"Where are you driving that cow to?" yelled Sam from the kitchen
door, at sunrise the following morning. "Take her out of there!
You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages."

But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding with
his driving, yelled back:

"Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it--a present to yer missus and
the babby."

"You take and drive