ry minute which she also knit. And
I thought of me and you and our snow-scene when we done that dance on
the Small Time with the sleighbells on our heels--remember dear? Before
we had really made good except with each other? And I thought about love
too and a lot of fool stuff like that. And then I heard a funny sound
for thereabouts. It was a woman moaning and crying.

Well, at first I thought mebbe I was crazy or imagined it, but Mac who
was walking in front with our own little Fritz stopped short and so did
Fritz and listened. It come again--the most dismal thing you ever want
to hear. I turned to Ceasare and he had heard it.

"Say drool," he says, which means "Its funny" only it wasnt and he didnt
mean it that way, but the other way. You know.

"It sure is!" I says. "There she goes again!"

"I think theers a wee bit housie over theere!" says Mac.

"It is the barn of my cousin's uncle," says Ceasare. "We better go
look."

So with that we started across the road to where sure enough was a funny
little barn--stone with a grass roof--peculiar to these parts, I guess.
The nearer we got the louder the noise was, but no words to it, only
sobbing very low and despairing and sort of sick--and a female--no doubt
of it. There wasn't any light nor anybody moving about as far as we
could tell.

"Gee! What'll we do?" I says in a whisper. "We can't pass it up!"

"Naw--we mun tak' a look inside!" whispers Mac.

"Certinmount," says Ceasare; "Mais--be careful! We put the Boch in first
and see if some trick is up!"

It being Ceasare's cousin's uncle's barn he knew where the door was,
and the three of us shoved Fritz up to it and made him understand he was
to open it and go in ahead of the crew. We finally got it over with
signs and shoves, because the bird didnt speak nothing but German and we
hadnt a word of it among us. But still we made him do it and he did, and
we pulled our guns and stood close behind and I stood closest and pulled
not alone my gun but the little electric flashlight you sent me which I
flashed in as quick as the door was opened.

IV

AND take it or leave it--there was a woman with a baby in her arms! She
was rather a young round-faced woman and that kid was awfully little and
held close under a big dark cloak the woman wore. The poor soul looked
tired out and she had no hat and her hair was all down. The inside of
the barn was a wreck and the rain was coming in through a big shellhole
in the roof