"I don't think it's any use, Bill; but you can try it," remarked
Mrs. Norris, her soul singing within her like a celestial choir.
* * * * *
"Where are you driving that cow to?" yelled Sam from the kitchen door, at sunrise the following morning. "Take her out of there! You're driving her into my yard, right over my cabbages."
But Jim, the Norris' hired man, only grinned, and proceeding with his driving, yelled back:
"Cow's yourn, Sam. Yer old man sent it—a present to yer missus and the babby."
"You take and drive that cow back again!" roared Sam. "And tell my dad I won't have hide nor hair of her on my place."
Back went the cow.
"Didn't I tell you?" mourned Mrs. Norris. "Sam's that stubborn and contrary. It's no use, Billy; he just doesn't care for his poor old father nor mother any more."
"By the jumping Jiminy Christmas! I'll make him care!" thundered old Billy. "I'm a-goin' ter see that grandchild of mine." Then followed a long silence.
"I say, Marthy, how are they fixed in the house?" he questioned, after many moments of apparently brown study.