The sound of laughter and dancing feet floated up to the unhappy boy. He heard the Strauss waltz vaguely. He said that he would go away to some other town where no one would know him. He would go to Chicago or even New York. He would go to the farthest ends of the earth and forget that there had ever been a town named Brailsford Junction or a girl named Maxine. After a few moments he turned from the window and ascended quietly to the upper hall. Scarcely breathing, he put his ear to Maxine's bedroom door. All that he could hear was the throbbing of his own pulse in his ears. Bud Spillman and Maxine had been drinking. He had seen them slip away together half an hour before, and they had not come back. If he found them together he knew that he would kill them and then himself. There! The rustle of silk. And now their voices and quiet laughter. Strangely, he was not angry now. All of his fury was suddenly drained away and he felt empty and shaken. He was amazed to find that the violin was still playing the Strauss waltz. CHAPTER XIII 1 On a steel-cold January morning with the frozen lake booming and the wind whining along the telephone wires--a morning so cold that the pump in the kitchen was frozen and three inches of ice capped the stock tanks--the Brailsfords rolled out at four to begin butchering. They left the deep warmth of their feather-beds, came down the narrow, precipitous back stairs worn in hollows by years of weary feet. Early Ann thawed the pump with hot water from the tea kettle; Sarah started the oatmeal, ham and eggs, toast and coffee. Gus scratched a peep-hole in the hoar frost on the window pane and looked out into the ten-below moonlight. "It's a cold day to butcher," Sarah said. "Mightn't we wait a few days, Stanley?" "Hank Vetter says he ain't got a pork chop left in his shop." "I suppose if we must, we must." The men pulled on arctics, wrapped red mufflers about their necks, drew on their worn dogskin coats and fur caps, and taking milk pails and lanterns went out to the barns. They had no time this morning to carry water for the stock. They chopped holes in the ice on the tanks; drove the animals out to drink. The water froze as it streamed from the beasts' lips. Breath froze in white clouds about the horses' nostrils. The great bull, led by the nose, bellowed and snorted in the lantern light. The horses' hooves rang on the frozen mud of the barnyard. "It's a rip snorter today," said Stud, coming in from the barns. He warmed his hands over the roaring stove. Sarah dipped him hot water from the reservoir and poured it into the wash basin. She hung his coat toward the fire to keep it warm, and hastened to serve the breakfast. While they ate they argued the all-important problem of which animals were to die; and by five-thirty they were ready to begin the day's work.