The women tiptoed into the little lean-to, with that expectant hush that the presence of death always causes.
On an improvised table, a little form lay covered with a sheet, above a box of slowly melting ice. The country ministrations of neighborly service were completed, and the women left the room and returned to their task of cleaning in the front of the little farmhouse.
“My land, but it’s quiet here! Bein’ so far off the main road, seems like a person never sees nor hears nobody. It’s enough to drive a person crazy.”
THE older woman had been standing for several minutes, with her mind preoccupied by struggling thought. At last she spoke:
“See here, Mis’ Prentis, if this pillow’d been standing up like this, it could’ve fell over on the baby. See?”
Both women bent over the carefully-folded bedclothing, placed upon the floor for the sake of a slightly cooler strata of air and also to obviate the possibility of the baby rolling off, while the mother was busy in some of the many tasks of the unaided farmer’s wife.
Little by little, the bedroom was straightened and the two rooms swept and dusted. Then Mrs. Prentis paused as she gave a final look around the rooms, walked to one of the windows on the south and ran a speculative finger over the glass. It was so heavily coated with dust as to be practically opaque. Then she stepped to the two windows on the east side of the room and looked at them. The panes of glass in both were clean and carefully polished.
“Now why do you suppose that is?” she asked.
Mrs. Collins, who had been following her moves, shook her head.