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 them and crept miserably into bed. Jerry stirred in his sleep, turned over and wound one arm around her, as his habit was. From the comfort of his warm body and circling arm peace came to her and she fell asleep.

The next morning the Slatten boys butchered a hog. Aunt Maggie Slatten, coming over in the late afternoon to borrow the Blackford sausage grinder, found Judith writhing and screaming on the bed. The two boys were standing solemnly by the bedside looking at their mother with scared eyes. The baby, not aware that anything was wrong, crept about the floor. She had been dabbling deliciously in the slop pail and her face and hands were smeared with its contents. The unwashed dinner dishes were still on the table, the floor was scattered with many things; and some washing that had been brought in from the line was piled in a heap in the rocking chair.

Aunt Maggie's experienced eye took in the situation at a glance. She sent Billy back to her place with the sausage grinder. Then she set about doing the things she knew to be necessary. She made up a fire and heated water. She put hot flatirons to Judith's feet and hot stovelids to her back. She rummaged around among the drawers and cupboards for sheets and old cloths, and did not neglect her opportunity to peer curiously and critically into all the household arrangements. When Jerry came home she sent him out to chop up more wood so that the fire could keep going all night. And when at last the struggle was over and Judith lay white and semi-conscious, she fixed her up as clean as she could, swept and straightened the house, plunged quantities of blood-soaked clothes into a tub of water on the porch and helped Jerry to get together something for them to eat. Jerry wanted to sit up; but she waved him aside, bent upon doing her whole duty. When the others were in bed she made herself comfortable in the old rocking chair and dozed till morning.

Not a word did she utter to the sick woman of inquiry or reproach. But the next day, talking privately with Aunt Sally Whitmarsh by the kitchen stove, with the door into the bed-