an instant.

"Where are you going, Jamie?" He hesitated. She forced an answer.

"Jamie," she said in a tone new to her, "there's been nothing but truth
and love between us; I must know."

"I'm goin' out wi' that can to get somethin' fur that chile, Anna, if I
haave t' swing fur it. That's what's in my mind an' God help me!"

"God help us both," she said.

He moved toward the street. She planted herself between him and the
door.

"No, we must stand together. They'll put you in jail and then the child
and I will die anyway. Let's wait another day!"

They sat down together in the corner. It was dark now and they had no
candle. The last handful of turf was on the fire. They watched the
sparks play and the fitful spurts of flame light up for an instant at a
time the darkened home. It was a picture of despair--the first of a long
series that ran down the years with them. They sat in silence for a long
time. Then they whispered to each other with many a break the words they
had spoken in what now seemed to them the long ago. The fire died out.
They retired, but not to sleep. They were too hungry. There was an
insatiable gnawing at their vitals that made sleep impossible. It was
like a cancer with excruciating pain added. Sheer exhaustion only,
stilled the cries of the starving child. There were no more tears in
their eyes, but anguish has by-valves more keen, poignant and subtle.

In agony they lay in silence and counted time by the repercussion of
pain until the welcome dawn came with its new supply of hope. The scream
of a frenzied mother who had lost a child in the night was the prelude
to a tragic day. Anna dressed quickly and in a few minutes stood by the
side of the woman. There was nothing to say. Nothing to do. It was her
turn. It would be Anna's next. All over the town the specter hovered.
Every day the reaper garnered a new harvest of human sheaves. Every day
the wolf barked. Every day the carpenter came.

When Anna returned Jamie had gone. She took her station by the child.
Jamie took the tin can and went out along the Gray-stone road for about
a mile and entered a pasture where three cows were grazing. He was weak
and nervous. His eyes were bloodshot and his hands trembled. He had
never milked a cow. He had no idea of the difficulty involved in
catching a cow and milking her in a pasture. There was the milk and
yonder his child, who without it would not survive the day. Desperation
dominated and directed