The father of the seven afflictions looked from one to the other, his eyes vigilant, like a creature at bay. He seemed to have a large contract on his hands, but he was inured, in his paternal charge, to large contracts, and thus he was not altogether dismayed. Perhaps in the exclusively feminine association at home he had learned something of the potency of feminine logic, and of the futility of imposing upon one’s capacities the devising of answers to categorical posers. He took refuge in a broad, unimpeachable proposition, which he delivered with all the impressiveness of refutation. “The Lord made wimmen,” he solemnly asseverated anew, as if piety forbade any criticism of the supreme handiwork, and on this ground defying contradiction. “An’ what diff’ence is that?” demanded Bassett, with a sneer that the moonlight accented, glittering on his teeth. “Who hev said contrariwise?” echoed Dake. “The Lord made ’em,” the paterfamilias again averred, with an arrogation of originality in his attitude as he advanced into the square of moonlight, which showed his bronzed face, with his short beard broadening its effect, his mild eye assuming belligerent intimations, as of a peaceful soul, who will, nevertheless, fight for his own, his long, thin lips firmly compressed beneath his bristly mustache. “The Lord made ’em, an’ I ain’t goin’ ter hear nuthin’ said agin ’em.” There was a pause. The frolicsome filly down in the stall below, kept awake, perchance, by the noise above, frisked about on two or three boards, upon which her small hoofs clattered noisily, doubtless to the admiration of her slower, wide-eyed friend the calf, and sent forth a shrill, gleeful little whinny, all head tones, indescribably callow. The mother responded with a note of maternal remonstrance; there was a sound of a scampering gallopade to her side, and the stall was still. The setting hen, close in to the wall, amidst the hay, stretched her long neck with its panting open bill, and emitted a sort of hysterical clucking of apprehension when the whole great mass trembled, as Bassett flung himself at length into its midst. His head was pillowed high amongst the fragrant billows, but his feet hung down unsupported, dangling to and fro with a disparaging gesture, as he demanded, “Hev ye tole yer wife an’ that thar congregation o’ small gals o’ yourn ’bout sech ez air goin’ for’ard ter-night ’mongst we-uns?” The grizzled head, held askew as its owner listened, gave an angry jerk. “Course I hain’t,” the paterfamilias rejoined, in surly but succinct denial. There was a sort of suppressed snort of indignation amongst the vigilantes, prophetic of the fury that would await the supposititious betrayal; it seemed, indeed, that the very hypothesis was not a safe subject. Clem Sanders stirred uneasily. “Waal, now,” said the crafty Bassett, “why _don’t_ ye tell ’em?”