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great after war pestilence called "flu" swept across Scott County that fall and winter, sparing neither the old men nor the young virgins. It knocked at many doors, and often where its knuckles had rapped the undertaker hung his bunch of crape. Sometimes the crape was a rusty black, often a rather soiled white. It took away Uncle Jonah Cobb and left Aunt Selina alone with the bees and rabbits. It took one of Joe Barnaby's children and Aunt Abigail's son, Noey, and Evalina, Aunt Maggie Slatten's second youngest girl. It took babies in arms and young men that the war had spared and women with child. It took Uncle Sam Whitmarsh away from his cheerful traffic in dogs and horses.

"It's allus this way," said Jabez Moorhouse. "War an' pestilence goes hand in hand. The bigger the war the bigger the pestilence. The Bible says them that's near at hand'll fall by the sword an' them that's afur off'll die o' the pestilence. We're a hell of a long ways off, but we're a-dyin' o' the pestilence jes the same."

He hunched his shoulders over the stove, feeling suddenly cold.

Once again winter settled down on the wind-shaken little house on the ridge. Judith, peering from the window at the mud and clouds of December, felt the old oppression sink upon her, heavier because so drearily familiar. How many years would it go on, she caught herself wondering.

It was nearly a year since the quarrel. Since then they had treated each other with the chilly politeness of strangers who do not much like each other's looks. In summer when life dragged less oppressively it was not so hard to bear. But now that winter was come her heart sank within her.

Christmas came and went and there was no change.