e earth can make laws agin it." He
had actually then raised a great fist and shaken it before the
doctor's face. "Now, don't you ever darse to darken my doors again,
Doctor Seth Prescott!" he had cried out. "If my wife or my children
are sick, I'll let them lay and die before I'll have you in the
house!" So saying, John Upham had stridden forth out of the doctor's
yard, where he had held the conversation with him, with Jake Noyes
and two other men covertly listening.

After that Jake Noyes had given surreptitious advice, with sly
shoving of medicine-vials into John Upham's or his wife's hands when
the children were ailing, and lately Jerome had taken his place.

"Guess you had better go there instead of me when the young ones are
out of sorts," Jake Noyes had told Jerome. Then he had added, with a
crafty twist and wink: "When ye can quarrel with your own bread an'
butter with a cat's-paw might as well do it, especially when you're
gettin' along in years. You 'ain't got anything to lose if you do set
the doctor again ye, and I have."

The house in which the Uphams had taken shelter was in sight of the
old homestead, some rods farther on, on the opposite side of the
road. It stood in a sandy waste of weeds on the border of an old
gravel-pit--an ancient cottage, with a wretched crouch of humility in
its very roof. It had been covered with a feeble coat of red paint
years ago, and cloudy lines of it still survived the wash of old
rains and the beat of old sunbeams.

Behind it on the north and west rose the sand-hill, dripping with
loose gravel as with water, hollowed out at its base until its crest,
bristling with coarse herbage, magnified against the sky, projected
far out over the cottage roof. The sun was reflected from the sand in
a great hollow of arid light. Jerome, nearing it, felt as if he were
approaching an oven. The cottage door was shut, as were all the
windows. However, he heard plainly the shrill wail of the sick baby.

John Upham opened the door. "Oh, it's you, Jerome!" said he.
"Good-day."

"Good-day," returned Jerome. "How is the baby?"

"Well, he seems kind of ailin'. Laury has been up with him all night.
Thought maybe you might give him something. Come in, won't ye?"

There were only two rooms on the lower floor of the cottage--one was
the kitchen, the other the bedroom where John Upham and his wife
slept with the three youngest children.

Jerome followed Upham across the kitchen to the bedro