Blindly she strove for reason. Billy would simply cry himself to sleep--it was bad for his whole nervous system, but it would not actually make him sick. What a chaos must be in that little heart! His mother had failed him for the first time in his life. It was cruel, the way Martin had forced her to this, and as she listened, for the next half hour, to the muffled sound of Billy's crying and saw how impervious to it Martin was, she knew that never again could things be the same between her husband and herself. But when, supper over, she found the corners of the rosebud mouth still pathetically down and Billy's breath still quivering in long gasps, she gathered the snuggly body to her and vowed in little broken love-words that from now on his father should have no further opportunities for discipline. Knowing him as she did, she should have trained the baby in the first place to go to sleep alone, should have denied herself those added sweet moments. After this she would be on her guard, forestall Martin, do tenderly what he would do harshly. Never again should her boy be made to suffer through any such mistaken selfishness of hers. And though, after a while, the importance of this episode shrank to its true proportions, she never forgot or broke this promise. It would have been literally impossible for her to touch Billy, even when he was naughtiest and most exasperating, with other than infinite love, but she had an even firmness of her own. As sensitive as herself, adoring her to the point of worship, he was easily punished by her displeasure or five minutes of enforced quiet on a chair. The note of dread in her voice as she pleaded: “Hush, oh, hush, Billy, be good; quick, darling, papa's coming,” was always effective. By ceaseless vigilance and indefatigable patience, she evaded further open rupture until the boy was three years old. His shrieks had brought both his father and herself flying to the hog barn to find him dancing up and down as, frightened and aghast, he vainly attempted to beat off old Dorcas, a mammoth sow, from one of her day-old litter on which, having crushed it by accident, she was now quite deliberately feasting. “God Almighty!” stormed Martin, hastily putting the little pigs back into the next pen. “Who let them in to her? That's her old trick.” “I opened the door,” confessed Billy, troubled, frank eyes looking straight into his father's. “They were hungry; that one wanted her most.” And, at the thought of the tragedy he had witnessed, he flung himself heartbroken into his mother's comforting arms. “I'll whip you for this,” said Martin sternly. “Oh, please!” protested Rose, gathering the child closer. “Can't you see he's had a bitter enough lesson? His little heart is full.” “He's got to learn, once and for all, not to meddle with the stock. Come here.”