“All but frying the sausage,” Rose answered, achieving a pleasant tone in spite of her jadedness. “He's almost turning the corner--hear his little sleepy song? Sit down and cool off. I'll have it ready by the time you and the boys are washed.” Under its thick coat of tan, Martin's face went white. “I've had enough of this,” he announced levelly. “You'll put him down and fry that meat.” “Wait just a minute,” she coaxed; “he'll be off for the night and if you wake him, he'll cry and get all worked up.” “You heard what I said.” His tone was vibrant with determination. “How am I going to keep hired men if you treat them like this? When they come in to eat, they want to find their food on the table.” “This doesn't often happen any more and they know, good and well, I make it up to them in other ways,” returned Rose truthfully. For answer, he crossed over to her quickly, reached down and took the baby from her. “What are you going to do with him?” she demanded, a-tremble with rage and a sense of impotent helplessness, as, avoiding her quick movement, Martin went into the bedroom. “Let him go to sleep as other children do, while you finish getting supper. Do you want to make a sissy of him?” “A lot you care what he becomes!” she flashed, conflicting impulses contending for mastery, as Billy, now thoroughly awake and seeing his mother, began to cry, pleading to her with big blue eyes and out-stretched arms to take him. She started forward, but Martin stepped between herself and the crib. “Martin Wade, let me pass. He's mine.” “It isn't going to hurt him to cry. He does it often enough.” “If you had a really cross baby around you'd know how good and reasonable Billy is,” she flamed, torn by the little sobs. “You get out to that kitchen,” he ordered, more openly angry than Rose had ever seen him. “I've had enough of this talk, do you hear, and enough of this way of doing. Don't you set foot in here again till supper's over. I've had quite enough, too, of jumping up and down to wait on myself.” Confusedly, Rose thought of her countless hours of lost sleep, her even yet unrecovered strength, the enormous readjustment of her own life in her sincere efforts to do her best by the whole household, her joyous acceptance of all the perpetual self-denial her new duties to Billy necessitated. In comparison, the inconveniences to which Martin had been put seemed trifling. The occasional delays, and the unusual bother of stepping to the stove, now and then, to pour himself and the men a hot cup of coffee--this was their sum total. And how injured he really felt! The injustice of it left her speechless. Nails biting into her hands in her struggle for self-control, she left the room. With a slam of the door behind him, Martin followed her.