"It did seem even to me, for a while, that the Lord was dealing hardly by Ezra, and that his heart was hardening rather than softening under the hand that was laid upon him. The harvest time had come again, and there had been more than the usual trouble about getting men to help with it. The boys had been kept steadily at work, but made no complaint; and their father, as the hired men declared, had done the work of two. He was the first up in the morning and the last to go to rest at night, and sometimes even had his food carried to the field to him, rather than lose the time coming to the house. So one morning it gave me quite a start to see him coming toward the house about ten o'clock, and I laid down my work and waited till he came in; and, whatever I forget before I die, I shall never forget the look on his face as he came near. I saw that he staggered as he walked, and that his right arm hung helpless by his side. "`What is it?' I cried out, running toward him, He put out his left hand as if to keep me off, and I saw that he moved his lips as though he were speaking, but he uttered no sound. "`You are hurt!' I said; and I took his arm, and he stumbled into the house, and fell across the bed in a dead faint. We did what we could for him--Prissy and I--and in the midst of our trouble I heard steps and voices coming towards the house; and, for the first time, the thought that something worse might have happened came to me. I turned round and saw the two hired men bringing something in on a board. My Davie! I had no power to cry out when I saw him--bruised, broken, and bleeding to death! I had just sense enough left to make them carry him into another room, so that the eyes of his father might not fall on him when they opened; and so they laid him down. "`It'll only hurt him to try to do anything for him, Mrs Stone,' said one of the men, with a break in his voice. `Speak to him. He has got something he wants to tell you. All he has said since it happened is--"I must tell mother."' "So I knelt down beside him, and put a little water on his face, and rubbed his hands, and whispered--`Davie dear, tell mother.' "And then he opened his eyes and said faintly,--`It doesn't hurt much; and, mother dear, father wasn't to blame.' "`And you're not afraid, my Davie?' I asked; and he said-- "`No, I needn't be, need I, mother? Jim's gone there, and baby--and Jesus died. Pray, mother!' "And so I did, a few broken words; and then he died with a smile on his face, which hadn't left it when we covered it for the last time." The pause was longer this time. Fidelia rose and moved away, and stood looking over to the hills on the other side of the valley for a little while, and when she came back Mrs Stone's face was quite calm, though there were traces of tears upon it.