Having arrived at the scene of his humiliation the next morning, he saw his father coming from the cornfield with his hands and pockets full of chosen ears of seed corn. Wully met him in the path just behind the barn, and they greeted each other without a sign of affection. What did Wully think of these ears? Wully felt them critically, one after another, with his thumb, and found them good. His father started on towards the barn.
“I want to tell you something, father.”
He stopped without a word, and stood listening.
“We’re going to have a baby.”
“ ’Tis likely.”
“I mean—in December.”
“December? In December!”
“Yes. That’s what I mean.”
John McLaughlin’s long keen face, which changed expression only under great provocation, now surrendered to surprise. He stood still, looking at his son penetratingly a long time. Wully kicked an imaginary clod back and forth in the path. Presently the father said, with more bitterness than Wully had ever heard in his voice,
“It seems we have brought the old country to the new!”
Wully pondered this unexpected deliverance without looking up.
After a little the older man added, sighing,
“I prayed my sons might be men who could wait.”
“A lot he knows about waiting!” thought Wully, half angrily. “Thirteen of us!”
“You tell mother about it, father,” he pleaded, knowing his entreaty useless.
“I will not!”
“I wish you would. I can’t—very well!”
“You’d best!”
Wully stood watching him tie the yellow ears into clusters on the sheltered side of the barn. He was trying with all his might to gather courage to face his mother. He hadn’t felt such a nervous hesitancy since the first time he went into action. He remembered only too well the last time he had really stirred her displeasure. Allen and he had quarreled, and had nursed their anger, in spite of her remonstrances, for two days. He had growled out something to his brother across the supper table, and after that, she had put the little children to bed, and had set her two sons down before the fireplace—it was in the first house they were living then. She had drawn her chair near them, and had proceeded quietly and grimly to flay them with her tongue. She had continued with deliberateness till they were glad to escape half crying to bed. He remembered still how she had begun. It might be natural, she said, for brothers to quarrel. But she believed that it would never again be natural for her sons to quarrel in her presence. And she had been perfectly right about that. What she would say now, upon an occasion like this with her dismaying self-control, he couldn’t even imagine. It would be nothing common, he felt sure.
On the bed which she had just finished spreading with a “drunkard’s path” quilt, they sat down together in a low room of the second story, where three beds full of boys were accustomed to sleep. She kissed him fondly when he came to her, saying it was a lonely house with him away so much. She wondered why they had not been at church. Was Chirstie not well again?
“I have something to tell you, mother,” he stammered.
“I’m listening,” she said encouragingly, her eyes studying him tenderly. How beautiful a head he had! How beautiful a man he was!
“We’re going to have a baby! In December, mother!”
Over her face there spread swiftly a smile of soft amusement. She had always looked that way when one of her children said something especially innocent and lovable.
“You don’t mean December, Wully! Dinna ye ken that? The wee’uns can’na just hurry so!”
He couldn’t look at her.
“I know what I mean!” he said, doggedly. “I mean December. I understand.” The silence became so ominous that at length he had to steal a look at her. Her incredulous face was flushed red with shame and anger. He rose to defend his love from her.
“You aren’t to say a word against her. It wasn’t her fault!”
Then the storm broke.
“Do you think I’m likely to say a word against the poor, greetin’ bairn!” she cried. “Her sitting there alone among the wolves and snakes, and a son of mine to bring her to shame! I’ll never lift my head again!” Her rush of emotion quite choked her.
“My fine, brave soldier of a son!” she burst out, recovering herself. “You did well, now, to choose a lassie alone, with neither father nor mother to defend her from you!”
“Mother!” he cried.
“Jeannie’s wee Chirstie!” she went on. “No one else could please you, I suppose! Oh, she did well to die when her son was but a laddie!”
Wretchedly ashamed of his deceit as he was, he was not able to take more of her reproof without trying to defend himself.
“I didn’t mean any harm!” he mumbled. “I didn’t think.” That was what Peter had said.
“And why did you not think!” she demanded, furiously. “Have you no mind of your own! You didn’t
