At this news the minister started with the doctor to see her. As they neared the place he noticed some red streaks gleaming in the woods, and asked what they were.
"Oh," said the doctor, "that is from the widow's house. She had to move into a stable of the deserted lumber camp."
The chinks had fallen out from the logs, and hence the gleam of fire. The house was a study in shadows—the floor sticky with mud brought in with the snow; the débris of a dozen meals on the table; a lamp, without chimney or bottom, stuck into an old tomato-can, gave its flickering light, and revealed the poor woman, with nothing to shield her from the storm but a few paper flour-sacks tacked back of the bed. Two or three chairs, the children in the other bed, the baby in a little soapbox on rockers, were all the wretched hovel contained. Medicine was left her, and the minister's watch for her to time it. He exchanged his watch for a clock the next day. By great persuasion the proper authorities were made to put her in the poorhouse, and she was lost to sight; but there was a bright ending in her case.
About a year after, a rosy-faced woman called at the parsonage. The pastor said, "Come in and have some dinner."
"I got some one waiting," she said.
"Why, who is that?"
"My new man."
"Yes; and we are just going after the rest of the traps up at the shanty, and I called to see whether you would give me the little clock for a keepsake?"
"Oh, yes."