"If a man ain't a young mother," he remarked, "I guess he can get the good of it, if he gives himself time. And what she wants"--rather hurriedly--"is to get as good a start as if she had a young mother." And he sat down and pulled off his right boot in so absorbed a frame of mind, that he aroused presently with a start to find that he was holding it as if it had been made of much less tough material and required handling tenderly. CHAPTER VIII He was on his way homeward early the next morning, and by noon his horse had climbed the rising ground from which he could look down on the Cross-roads and the post-office baking itself brown in the sun. Catching sight of the latter edifice, he smiled a little and shook the bridle against his steed's warm neck. "Get along, Jake," he said. "I'm in a little more of a hurry to get home than usual--seems that way anyhow." The eagerness he felt was a new experience with him and stirred his sense of humour even while it warmed his always easily moved heart. It had been his wont during the last eight years to return from any absence readily but never eagerly or with any touch of excited pleasure. Even at their brightest aspect, with the added glow of fire and warmth and good cheer, and contrast to winter's cold and appetite sharpened by it, the back rooms had always suffered from the disadvantage of offering no prospect of companionship or human interest to him. After the supper had been disposed of and the newspapers read and the pipe smoked, there had only been the fire to watch, and it was quite natural to brood as its blaze died down and its logs changed to a bed of glowing cinders. Under such circumstances it was easy to fall into a habit of brooding too much and thinking of things which had better been forgotten. When there was no fire, it had been lonelier still, and he had found the time hang heavily, on his hands. "But now," he said, shaking his bridle again, "there she is, and it's quite queer, by thunder, how much she seems to give a man to think of and what will it be when she begins to talk." And his smile ended in a jovial laugh which rather startled Jake, who was not expecting it, and caused him to shy promptly. She was not asleep when he entered her presence, which was so unusual a state of affairs that he found it a little alarming. "Hello!" he exclaimed, "there's nothing wrong, I hope." "Wid dat chile?" chuckled Mornin, delightedly. "I sh'd think not, Mars' D'Willerby! Dat ar chile's a-thrivin' an' a-comin' 'long jes' like she'd orter. Dar ain't a-gwine to be nothin' wrong wid dat chile." "That's a good thing," said Tom.