crub them, to be exact in
placing the sheet. Her head cleared; she was able to look calmly in at
her husband and the farmwife while they undressed the wailing man, got
him into a clean nightgown, and washed his arm. Kennicott came to lay
out his instruments. She realized that, with no hospital facilities, yet
with no worry about it, her husband--HER HUSBAND--was going to perform
a surgical operation, that miraculous boldness of which one read in
stories about famous surgeons.

She helped them to move Adolph into the kitchen. The man was in such a
funk that he would not use his legs. He was heavy, and smelled of sweat
and the stable. But she put her arm about his waist, her sleek head by
his chest; she tugged at him; she clicked her tongue in imitation of
Kennicott's cheerful noises.

When Adolph was on the table Kennicott laid a hemispheric steel and
cotton frame on his face; suggested to Carol, "Now you sit here at his
head and keep the ether dripping--about this fast, see? I'll watch
his breathing. Look who's here! Real anesthetist! Ochsner hasn't got a
better one! Class, eh? . . . Now, now, Adolph, take it easy. This won't
hurt you a bit. Put you all nice and asleep and it won't hurt a bit.
Schweig' mal! Bald schlaft man grat wie ein Kind. So! So! Bald geht's
besser!"

As she let the ether drip, nervously trying to keep the rhythm that
Kennicott had indicated, Carol stared at her husband with the abandon of
hero-worship.

He shook his head. "Bad light--bad light. Here, Mrs. Morgenroth, you
stand right here and hold this lamp. Hier, und dieses--dieses lamp
halten--so!"

By that streaky glimmer he worked, swiftly, at ease. The room was still.
Carol tried to look at him, yet not look at the seeping blood, the
crimson slash, the vicious scalpel. The ether fumes were sweet, choking.
Her head seemed to be floating away from her body. Her arm was feeble.

It was not the blood but the grating of the surgical saw on the living
bone that broke her, and she knew that she had been fighting off nausea,
that she was beaten. She was lost in dizziness. She heard Kennicott's
voice--

"Sick? Trot outdoors couple minutes. Adolph will stay under now."

She was fumbling at a door-knob which whirled in insulting circles;
she was on the stoop, gasping, forcing air into her chest, her head
clearing. As she returned she caught the scene as a whole: the cavernous
kitchen, two milk-cans a leaden patch by the wall, hams dangling from