e roof's fell in! Them
hogs'll be smothered."

"They will if we don't get at them pretty quick. Run to the house
and tell Mother. Mahailey will have to milk this morning, and get
back here as fast as you can."

The roof was a flat thatch, and the weight of the snow had been
too much for it. Claude wondered if he should have put on a new
thatch that fall; but the old one wasn't leaky, and had seemed
strong enough.

When Dan got back they took turns, one going ahead and throwing
out as much snow as he could, the other handling the snow that
fell back. After an hour or so of this work, Dan leaned on his
shovel.

"We'll never do it, Claude. Two men couldn't throw all that snow
out in a week. I'm about all in."

"Well, you can go back to the house and sit by the fire," Claude
called fiercely. He had taken off his coat and was working in his
shirt and sweater. The sweat was rolling from his face, his back
and arms ached, and his hands, which he couldn't keep dry, were
blistered. There were thirty-seven hogs in the hog-house.

Dan sat down in the hole. "Maybe if I could git a drink of water,
I could hold on a-ways," he said dejectedly.

It was past noon when they got into the shed; a cloud of steam
rose, and they heard grunts. They found the pigs all lying in a
heap at one end, and pulled the top ones off alive and squealing.
Twelve hogs, at the bottom of the pile, had been suffocated. They
lay there wet and black in the snow, their bodies warm and
smoking, but they were dead; there was no mistaking that.

Mrs. Wheeler, in her husband's rubber boots and an old overcoat,
came down with Mahailey to view the scene of disaster.

"You ought to git right at them hawgs an' butcher 'em today,"
Mahailey called down to the men. She was standing on the edge of
the draw, in her patched jacket and ravelled hood. Claude, down
in the hole, brushed the sleeve of his sweater across his
streaming face. "Butcher them?" he cried indignantly. "I wouldn't
butcher them if I never saw meat again."

"You ain't a-goin' to let all that good hawg-meat go to wase, air
you, Mr. Claude?" Mahailey pleaded. "They didn't have no sickness
nor nuthin'. Only you'll have to git right at 'em, or the meat
won't be healthy."

"It wouldn't be healthy for me, anyhow. I don't know what I will
do with them, but I'm mighty sure I won't butcher them."

"Don't bother him, Mahailey," Mrs. Wheeler cautioned her. "He's
tired, and he has to fix some place for