“Are the childern asleep, Sally?”
“Yes, an' tucked away.” She came to him with a cautious step, and looked up into his face trustingly. “Little Billy kept askin' fer papa, papa, papa! He said he jest wasn't goin' to sleep anywhar except in his own place in yore lap.”
Pole went to the children's bed, looked down at the row of yellow heads for a moment, then suddenly bent and took the eldest boy into his arms.
“You goose!” Mrs. Baker exclaimed. “I'm sorry I said what I did. You'll spile 'im to death. Thar, I knowed he'd wake up! It's jest what you wanted.”
“Did you want yore papa?” Pole said, in cooing tones of endearment. “Well, Billy-boy, papa's got you, an' he ain't a-goin' to let no booger git you, nuther. Thar now, go back to sleep.” And in a big arm-chair before the fire Pole sat and rocked back and forth with the child's head on his shoulder.
“Whar've you been, papa?” Billy asked, sliding his arm around Pole's rough, sunbrowned neck and pressing his face to his father's.
“To feed the hogs, Billy-boy.”
“But you never took so long before,” argued the child.
“I had to watch 'em eat, Billy-boy—eat, eat, eat, Billy-boy! They hadn't had anything since mom-in' except roots, an' snags, an' pusley weeds, an' it was a purty sight to watch 'em stick the'r snouts in that slop. Now, go to sleep. Here we go—here we go—across the bridge to Drowsy Town.”
In a moment the child was sleeping soundly and Pole bore him tenderly back to bed. As he straightened up in the darkened room his wife was beside him.