The girl rose in turn, bearing her shoulder so that the fatherly hand might still remain upon it. “Truly?” she asked, with a new light upon her pale face. “Yes--truly!” Abner replied, gravely nodding his head. Esther took the hand from her shoulder, and shook it in both of hers. “Good-night again, then,” she said, and turned to go. Suddenly there resounded the loud rapping of a stick on the barn-door, close by my head. Abner squared his huge shoulders and threw a downright glance at the gun on the floor “Well?” he called out.. “_Is my da’ater inside there?_” We all knew that thin, high-pitched, querulous voice. It was old “Jee”’ Hagadorn who was outside. CHAPTER XII--THE UNWELCOME GUEST Abner and Esther stood for a bewildered minute, staring at the rough unpainted boards through which this astonishing inquiry had come. I scrambled to my feet and kicked aside the tick and blankets. Whatever else happened, it did not seem likely that there was any more sleeping to be done. Then the farmer strode forward and dragged one of the doors back on its squeaking rollers. Some snow fell in upon his boots from the ridge that had formed against it over night. Save for a vaguely faint snow-light in the air, it was still dark. “Yes, she’s here,” said Abner, with his hand on the open door. “Then I’d like to know--” the invisible Jee began excitedly shouting from without. “Sh-h! You’ll wake everybody up!” the farmer interposed. “Come inside, so that I can shut the door.” “Never under your roof!” came back the shrill hostile voice. “I swore I never would, and I won’t!” “You’d have to take a crowbar to get under my roof,” returned Abner, grimly conscious of a certain humor in the thought. “What’s left of it is layin’ over yonder in what used to be the cellar. So you needn’t stand on ceremony on _that_ account. I ain’t got no house now, so’t your oath ain’t bindin’. Besides, the Bible says, ‘Swear not at all!’” A momentary silence ensued; then Abner rattled the door on its wheels. “Well, what are you goin’ to do?” he asked, impatiently. “I can’t keep this door open all night, freezin’ everybody to death. If you won’t come in, you’ll have to stay out!” and again there was an ominous creaking of the rollers. “I want my da’ater!” insisted Jehoiada, vehemently. “I stan’ on a father’s rights.” “A father ain’t got no more right to make a fool of himself than anybody else,” replied Abner, gravely. “What kind of a time o’ night is this, with the snow knee-deep, for a girl to be out o’ doors? She’s all right here, with my women-folks, an’ I’ll bring her down with the cutter in the mornin’--that is, if she wants to come. An’ now, once for all, will you step inside or not?”