Micnoun."

"I hae never seen Mary consume much but calico and food," Dannie said
dryly.

"Oh, it ain't so much what a woman really spinds," said Jimmy,
peevishly, as he shoved the money into his pocket, and pulled on his
mittens. "It's what you know she would spind if she had the chance."

"I dinna think ye'll break up on that," laughed Dannie.

And that was what Jimmy wanted. So long as he could set Dannie
laughing, he could mold him.

"No, but I'll break down," lamented Jimmy in sore self-pity, as he
remembered the quarter sacred to the purchase of the milk pail.

"Ye go on, and hurry," urged Dannie. "If ye dinna start home by seven,
I'll be combing the drifts fra ye before morning."

"Anything I can do for you?" asked Jimmy, tightening his old red neck
scarf.

"Yes," answered Dannie. "Do your errand and start straight home, your
teeth are chattering noo. A little more exposure, and the rheumatism
will be grinding ye again. Ye will hurry, Jimmy?"

"Sure!" cried Jimmy, ducking under a snow slide, and breaking into a
whistle as he turned toward the road.

Dannie's gaze followed Jimmy's retreating figure until he climbed the
bank, and was lost in the woods, and the light in his eyes was the
light of love. He glanced at the sky, and hurried down the river. First
across to Jimmy's side to gather his rats and reset his traps, then to
his own. But luck seemed to have turned, for all the rest of Dannie's
were full, and all of Jimmy's were empty. But as he was gone, it was
not necessary for Dannie to slip across and fill them, as was his
custom when they worked together. He would divide the rats at skinning
time, so that Jimmy would have just twice as many as he, because Jimmy
had a wife to support. The last trap of the line lay a little below the
curve of Horseshoe Bend, and there Dannie twisted the tops of the bags
together, climbed the bank, and struck across Rainbow Bottom. He
settled his load to his shoulders, and glanced ahead to choose the
shortest route. He stopped suddenly with a quick intake of breath.

"God!" he cried reverently. "Hoo beautifu' are Thy works."

The ice-covered Wabash circled Rainbow Bottom like a broad white frame,
and inside it was a perfect picture wrought in crystal white and snow
shadows. The blanket on the earth lay smoothly in even places, rose
with knolls, fell with valleys, curved over prostrate logs, heaped in
mounds where bushes grew thickly, and piled high in drifts where t