He went, obediently, stood in the doorway, his scarred hands hanging.
Eris lay asleep in her brand new cradle, almost invisible under the white fabrics that swathed her.
The chamber of death was no stiller than this dim room where life was beginning. There was no sound, no light except a long, rosy ray from the setting sun falling athwart the cradle.
So slept Eris, daughter of discord, and so named,—an unwelcome baby born late in her parents’ lives, and opening her blind, bluish eyes like an April wind-flower in a world still numb from winter.
Odell stared at the mound of covers.
It would be a long while before this baby could be of any use at Whitewater Farms.
CHAPTER II
IT is a long lane that has no turning, either for cattle or for men.
When Fanny died Odell was forty. Two months later he married the strapping daughter of Ed Lister. And came to the turn in the long, long lane he had travelled for twenty years.
For, as Whitewater Queen was a breeder of heifer-calves, Mazie Lister proved to be a breeder of men.