"Just fetch that grease, Nonie. Step spry, too--there's a lot to be done before this day's over. Lordy, I thought to myself last night, that the Lord strikes hard--leavin' those ten children that haven't done no wrong without any mother to manage and Timothy Hopkins sittin' there as helpless like he'd been hit over the head, he's that stunned. And scarcely a bite in the house." Old Dan'l had long since gotten past the day of worrying over the ways of the Lord. Nor to him was there anything particularly startling in a lack of food. His had always been a philosophy that believed that from somewhere or other Providence would provide, and if it didn't-- "Scarcely a bite, and all steppin' on one another, there's so many of 'em, and then when I think o' Happy House and the plenty there's there, well, 's I say, the Lord's ways are beyond _me_! Eat up your breakfast, Nonie. You gotta do up the work here, for I told that poor man I'd come back quick as ever I could. There's no end of work to be done 'fore that place will look fit for folks to come and see her." "Can I go, too, Liz?" asked Davy. "Mebbe I can help." Normally Liz would have made a sharp retort. Now she considered a moment. "Mebbe you can. You can play with the baby so's Jennie can help me sweep and dust. Sarah Hopkins would turn over if she thought folks was goin' to see the muss and litter. Hurry along." All that Liz had said of the house of mourning had been true. Davy found the muss and litter; the poor smithy wandering helplessly around and the "young 'uns" stepping on one another. He shut his eyes tight so that he would not have to catch the tiniest glimpse of poor Sarah Hopkins lying very still in the bedroom off the kitchen. He was glad when Liz, in a strangely brisk tone, bade Jennie, the oldest Hopkins girl, give the baby over to Davy. "He's come 'long to mind the baby, so's you can help. Take him outside, Davy, and keep him out from under foot. Take up these dishes! Sure's I'm livin' I see Mrs. Sniggs comin' up the road this blessed minit." Davy, gathering up his charge, retreated hastily. In fact, his pace did not slacken until he was well away from the Hopkins home. Then he put his burden down under a tree and stared at it. The baby, blissfully unconscious of its loss, cooed ecstatically to express his joy at the unusual attention. He reached out tiny hands to Davy. "Go----go!" he gurgled, coaxingly. "You sit right there! I gotta think," was Davy's scowling answer. And Davy was thinking--hard. Liz' story, over the breakfast, had sunk deep into his soul. _He_ knew what it was to live in a household where there was no mother and not much food!