kind as you are to these
cows."

"They have more sense," he retorted angrily. And when Rose woke him, the
following night, to go for the doctor, his quick exclamation was: "So
now you've done it, have you?"

As the sound of his horse's hoofs died away, it seemed to her that he
had taken the very heart out of her courage. She thought with anguished
envy of the women whose husbands loved them, for whom the heights and
depths of this ordeal were as real as for their wives. It seemed to her
that even the severest of pain could be wholly bearable if, in the midst
of it, one felt cherished. Well, she would go through it alone as she
had gone through everything else since their marriage. She would try to
forget Martin. She WOULD forget him. She must. She would keep her mind
fixed on the deep joy so soon to be hers. Had she not chosen to suffer
of her own free will, because the little creature that could be won only
through it was worth so much more than anything else the world had to
offer? She imagined the baby already arrived and visualized him as she
hoped her child might be at two years. Suppose he were in a burning
house, would she have the courage to rescue him? What would be the limit
of her endurance in the flames? She laughed to herself at the absurdity
of the question. How well she knew its answer! She wished with
passionate intensity that she could look into the magic depths of some
fairy mirror and see, for just the flash of one instant, exactly how
her boy or girl really would look. How much easier that would make it to
hold fast to the consciousness that she was not merely in pain, but
was laboring to bring forth a warm flesh-and-blood child. There was the
rub--in spite of her eagerness, the little one, so priceless, wasn't as
yet quite definite, real. She recalled the rosy-checked, curly-haired
youngster her fancy had created a moment ago. She would cling to that
picture; yes, even if her pain mounted to agony, it should be of the
body only; she would not let it get into her mind, not into her soul,
not into the welcoming mother-heart of her.

Meanwhile, as she armored her spirit, she built a fire, put on water to
heat, attended capably to innumerable details. Rose was a woman of sound
experience. She had been with others at such times. It held no goblin
terrors for her. Had it not been for Martin's heartlessness, she would
have felt wholly equal to the occasion. As it was, she made little
commotion. Dr. Bra