hands
and the look of their faces.

"It's grand--ayes!" Aunt Deel said in a low tone.

She rose in a moment and beckoned to me and my uncle. We followed her
through the open door to the other room.

"I'll tell ye what I'd do," she whispered. "I'd give 'em to ol'
Kate--ayes! She's goin' to stay with us till to-morrow."

"Good idee!" said Uncle Peabody.

So I took the money out of their hands and went in and gave it to the
Silent Woman.

"That's your present from me," I said.

How can I forget how she held my arm against her with that loving,
familiar, rocking motion of a woman who is soothing a baby at her breast
and kissed my coat sleeve? She released my arm and, turning to the
window, leaned her head upon its sill and shook with sobs. The dusk had
thickened. As I returned to my seat by the stove I could dimly see her
form against the light of the window. We sat in silence for a little
while.

Aunt Deel broke it by singing in a low tone as she rocked:

"My days are passing swiftly by
And I--a pilgrim stranger--
Would not detain them as they fly,
These days of toil and danger."

Uncle Peabody rose and got a candle and lighted it at the hearth.

"Wal, Bart, we'll do the chores, an' then I warn ye that we're goin' to
have some fun," he said as he got his lantern. "There's goin' to be some
Ol' Sledge played here this evenin' an' I wouldn't wonder if Kate could
beat us all."

I held the lantern while Uncle Peabody fed the sheep and the two cows
and milked--a slight chore these winter days.

"There's nothing so cold on earth as a fork stale on a winter night," he
remarked as he was pitching the hay. "Wish I'd brought my mittens."

"You and I are to go off to bed purty early," he said as we were going
back to the house. "Yer Aunt Deel wants to see Kate alone and git her to
talk if she can."

Kate played with us, smiling now and then at my uncle's merry ways and
words, but never speaking. It was poor fun, for the cards seemed to take
her away from us into other scenes so that she had to be reminded of her
turn to play.

"I dunno but she'll swing back into this world ag'in," said Uncle
Peabody when we had gone up to our little room. "I guess all she needs
is to be treated like a human bein'. Yer Aunt Deel an' I couldn't git
over thinkin' o' what she done for you that night in the ol' barn. So I
took some o' yer aunt's good clothes to her an' a pair o' boots an'
asked her to come to