Abbie could not answer him.
"I don't know who'll keep the furnace a-goin' when I'm gone, nor fill the up-stairs woodroom."
Still no answer.
"I'm old now—I'll go to Owen Frazer's farm—down to Mile Corners. He'll have some work I can do."
Old Chris stroked his baggy cheeks with trembling hands. Abbie still looked out of the window.
"I'm a-goin' down to the post-office now," said Old Chris, as he turned and went to the door. "Be there anything you want?"
Abbie shook her head; she could not find words. As Old Chris went down the hall she heard him mumble, "I don't know what she'll do when I'm gone."
That night Abbie sat in the parlor window longer than usual. It was a white night; wet snow had been falling heavily all day. Some time between eight and nine o'clock she arose from her chair and went into the long, narrow dining-room. The pat-pat of her slippered feet aroused Old Chris from his nodding over the Farm Herald. Finding that the hot air was not coming up strong through the register over which he sat, the old man slowly pushed his wool-socked feet into felt-lined overshoes and tramped down into the cellar, picking up the kitchen lamp as he went. Abbie followed as far as the kitchen. The pungent dry-wood smell that came up the stairs when Old Chris swung open the door of the wood cellar made her sniff. She heard the sounds as he loaded the wheelbarrow with the sticks of quartered hardwood; the noise of the wheel bumping over the loose boards as he pushed his load into the furnace-room. She went back into the parlor and stood over the register. Hollow sounds came up through the pipe as Old Chris leveled the ashes in the fire-box and threw in the fresh sticks.
When Old Chris came up from the cellar and went out onto the porch to draw up fresh water for the night, Abbie went back into the kitchen.
"It's snowin' hard out," said Old Chris.