rms,--it was the only way
you _would_ be hushed up, and you'd lie and yell till somebody did it.

Now, it wasn't many times since we'd been married that I had let her do
that thing all night long. I used to have a way of getting up to take my
turn, and sending her off to sleep. It isn't a man's business, some
folks say. I don't know anything about that; maybe, if I'd been broiling
my brain in book learning all day till come night, and I was hard put to
it to get my sleep anyhow, like the parson there, it wouldn't; but all I
know is, what if I had been breaking my back in the potato-patch since
morning? so she'd broken her's over the oven; and what if I did need
nine hours' sound sleep? I could chop and saw without it next day, just
as well as she could do the ironing, to say nothing of my being a great
stout fellow,--there wasn't a chap for ten miles round with my
muscle,--and she with those blue veins on her forehead. Howsomever that
may be, I wasn't used to letting her do it by herself, and so I lay with
my eyes shut, and pretended that I was asleep; for I didn't feel like
giving in, and speaking up gentle, not about that nor anything else.

I could see her though, between my eyelashes, and I lay there, every
time I woke up, and watched her walking back and forth, back and forth,
up and down, with the heavy little fellow in her arms, all night long.

Sometimes, Johnny, when I'm gone to bed now of a winter night, I think I
see her in her white nightgown with her red-plaid shawl pinned over her
shoulders and over the baby, walking up and down, and up and down. I
shut my eyes, but there she is, and I open them again, but I see her all
the same.

I was off very early in the morning; I don't think it could have been
much after three o'clock when I woke up. Nancy had my breakfast all laid
out overnight, except the coffee, and we had fixed it that I was to make
up the fire, and get off without waking her, if the baby was very bad.
At least, that was the way I wanted it; but she stuck to it she should
be up,--that was before there'd been any words between us.

The room was very gray and still,--I remember just how it looked, with
Nancy's clothes on a chair, and the baby's shoes lying round. She had
got him off to sleep in his cradle, and had dropped into a nap, poor
thing! with her face as white as the sheet, from watching.

I stopped when I was dressed, halfway out of the room, and looked round
at it,--it was so white,