"I'll go and see him to-morrow, or as soon as the roads are fit," was her resolve. "Luther's right; he usually is." The cattle calling from below brought her back to the necessities of the hour. Laying hold of the frosty pitchfork she renewed her attack upon the hay and continued till the racks were filled. By the time the ladder was put away again her hands were stinging till it was impossible to work, and she ran to the barn where she could put them against Patsie's flank while she blew her warm breath upon them. Patsie was ticklish, and twitched her loose hide nervously and gnawed at her feed-box with little squeals of excitement. The feed-box was of two-inch lumber instead of the usual sort. It was like all John did: so much attention put in one place there was no time for the rest; well done, but much left undone. Everything about John's barn was orderly and well built. There had been a time when she had rejoiced at what seemed to be thrift, but to-day she saw it from a new angle; Mr. Farnshaw had wastefully let his machinery rot and his stock perish from cold, but here was wastefulness of another sort; Elizabeth speculated on the cost of this barn and thought of the interest to be paid. On her way to the cow-stable where the little mother whose calf had fallen a victim to the cold awaited her, she thought of the toolroom where she had gone for her feed. A forty-dollar set of harness hung there: Carter's harness had chains instead of leather tugs, and would outwear them several times over. It was an orderly toolroom: the bridles occupied a row over the collars, hames and back-bands came next, and on the other side of the room, on six-inch spikes, hung extra clevises, buckles, straps, and such materials as accidents to farm machinery required. John's mending was well provided for and well done. Elizabeth would have loved just this sort of order if it had not been so costly. The little cow was so hungry that she hardly knew that she was giving her milk into a foreign receptacle till a voice at the stable door made her jump so violently that the pail was knocked over and Elizabeth had to scramble hastily to avoid a similar fate. "Well, now, there you be! Gosh-a-livin's!----" Silas Chamberlain never finished that speech. The milk from the rolling pail spattered over his feet as he sprang to Elizabeth's rescue. The little cow tore at the rope that held her, and every mate she had in the stable joined her in snorting and threatening to bolt over the mangers. The old man, "So-bossied," and vented all the soothing cattle talk he could command while he looked on in embarrassed confusion. "Now ain't that jes' like me?" he queried in dismay. "Look what I've gone an' done!" He picked up the empty pail and handed it to the man that was with him to keep it from being trampled upon by the plunging cows, while he tried to establish confidential relations with them.