For a moment he thought she was coming back, and straightened up with a not unaccountable thrill. But then he sank down again, recognizing old Baldy Minn by a faint flapping of soles, many sizes too large for her, on the dust. Baldy Minn had a wide, gelatinous person, forever billowing and breaking against the precarious dams of her clothing when she moved about; a silky gray beard blurred the contour of her chin; her small eyes floated in a brownish liquor, prying, inquisitorial, continually suspicious of women’s figures, seeming to say: “Mmmm--so you’re at it again. Don’t lie about it, because you can’t fool _me_.” A most horrible old woman. She came flapping through the moonlight and stopped in front of the gate. “Ai, ai!” she greeted, in a strong, bubbly voice. “They telled me you’re back, Va Di. Too much f’ the devil, was y’u? Well, blessed saints take pity onto the maids, if they’s any lef’.... Is y’r ma up?” “I dunno.” Va Di was a little afraid of this woman, and disliked her accordingly. “I’ll take a look,” he mumbled, after enduring her eyes for a moment. He turned to the door and called: “Ma! Hey there, _ma_!” A sudden faint crash sounded from the other end of the house, as if some one had started out of a doze and knocked something over. “Huh, Tony! That you, Tony?” “A’right,” Va Di grumbled. “You c’n go in, Baldy Minn.... Say--” He peered at the bundle swinging in her hand, an old shawl full and exuding ragged ends of things. “Say, what you want, this time o’ night?” The old crone turned within the entry and winked a leering eye. “That big kittle o’ y’r ma’s,” she bubbled. “Oh! O-o-oh, I git y’u! Who is it this time, Baldy Minn?” The woman grinned and flapped a hand at him with a horrible coyness. “None o’ your beezness, _any_how.” After a time, driven by an unaccountable restlessness, he moved into the house, felt his way softly along a wall, and stood in what had been meant for the dining-room. The air was heavy and sour with the sleeping of the three younger boys, but the door was open a crack into the kitchen, and in the lean, bright aperture he could see Baldy Minn’s face with all its dewlaps shivering. “I knowed it all along,” she was saying. “I knowed she’d never carry it--ugh-ugh--not outa that old crook-leg.” The boards groaned ever so slightly beneath Va Di’s heels. His mother’s voice came through the crack, heavy with the burden of ages. “I’ve hear of seven-monthers livin’.” “I kep’ one myself.” The midwife’s lips sucked in and exploded with a suggestion of defiance. “Mis’ Deutra claims she kep’ one oncet, but she never. Sam Raphael’s boy’s a seven-monther an’ _I_ kep’ _him_, an’ don’ you let nobody tell y’u diff’nt, Annie.... But a six-monther--ugh-ugh. No.”