a sacrilegious grace to his
gestures in the pulpit.

CHAPTER VII

THE LITTLE ITINERANT--AND OTHERS

On this circuit, in a house nearly as open as a barn, on a freezing
winter night, our baby was born. The gaunt, dark room, the roaring
fire upon the wide hearth, the ugly little kettle of herb tea steaming
on the live coals, and the old mountain midwife, bending with her
hideous scroll face over me, are all a part of the memory of an
immortal pain. At the end of a dreadful day she had turned with some
contempt from the fine lady on the bed, who could not give birth to her
child, and said simply, as if with the saying she washed her hands of
the whole matter:

"She ain't doin' right. I reckon somethin' is wrong."

William had ridden forth in the driving storm of snow and ice for the
doctor, who lived ten miles distant across the mountain. And then the
hours came and sat around the awful bed and would not pass, nor let
even midnight come. Now and again the old scroll face peeped down at
me with an expression of extreme terror. The firelight made a red mist
over the dark walls and the steam of the herbs filled my nostrils with
a sickening odor.

At last there was an end of endurance; the hours lifted their leaden
wings and hurried away; the old midwife changed to a dragon-faced
butterfly, and I knew no more till the dawn and the snow spread a pale
light over the world outside. Within, the fires still blazed, but the
herb kettle was gone and the ring of ghosts coals lay whitening in
their ashes where it spouted and steamed; the old hag sat asleep in the
chimney corner, with her hands hanging down, her head thrown back, and
her warped mouth gaping wide at the rafters above. Over a little table
by the door a fine white tablecloth was spread. I wondered at it dimly
and what it concealed. I felt William's shaggy head bowed upon the bed
and a peace in my body akin to the peace of death. Laboriously my eyes
traveled back to the fine white cloth over the table. I knew all about
it, but could not remember. Only, nothing in the world mattered to me
but that, whatever it was, under the cloth on the table. Presently,
soft as a shade returns, it came to me, and I knew the little shape,
barely curving the cloth, was my baby. Grief was an emotion I had not
the strength to afford. I closed my eyes and felt tears press through
the lids, and then a gruff voice sounded close to me on the other side
of the bed.