ee Mrs. Leon Poirier and her little
black-eyed, brown-skinned baby? No, they never knew what to say to
each other.

"If 'twasn't so cold I'd go up and see Ida," she said. "As it is, I
guess I'd better fall back on my knitting, for I saw Jimmy Sentner's
toes sticking through his socks the other day. How setback poor David
did look, to be sure! But I think I've settled that marrying notion of
his once for all and I'm glad of it."

She said the same thing next day to Mrs. Tom Sentner, who had come
down to help her pick her geese. They were at work in the kitchen with
a big tubful of feathers between them, and on the table a row of dead
birds, which Leon had killed and brought in. Josephine was enveloped
in a shapeless print wrapper, and had an apron tied tightly around her
head to keep the down out of her beautiful hair, of which she was
rather proud.

"What do you think, Ida?" she said, with a hearty laugh at the
recollection. "David Hartley was here to tea last night, and asked me
to marry him again. There's a persistent man for you. I can't brag of
ever having had many beaux, but I've certainly had my fair share of
proposals."

Mrs. Tom did not laugh. Her thin little face, with its faded
prettiness, looked as if she never laughed.

"Why won't you marry him?" she said fretfully.

"Why should I?" retorted Josephine. "Tell me that, Ida Sentner."

"Because it is high time you were married," said Mrs. Tom decisively.
"I don't believe in women living single. And I don't see what better
you can do than take David Hartley."

Josephine looked at her sister with the interested expression of a
person who is trying to understand some mental attitude in another
which is a standing puzzle to her. Ida's evident wish to see her
married always amused Josephine. Ida had married very young and for
fifteen years her life had been one of drudgery and ill-health. Tom
Sentner was a lazy, shiftless fellow. He neglected his family and was
drunk half his time. Meadowby people said that he beat his wife when
"on the spree," but Josephine did not believe that, because she did
not think that Ida could keep from telling her if it were so. Ida
Sentner was not given to bearing her trials in silence.

Had it not been for Josephine's assistance, Tom Sentner's family would
have stood an excellent chance of starvation. Josephine practically
kept them, and her generosity never failed or stinted. She fed and
clothed her nephews and nieces, and a