An equable tempered, practical woman might have trained him readily to the duties of masculine provider in the primitive household. But beautiful, spoiled Callista, burning with wrongs which she was too proud and too angry to voice, eaten with jealousy of those thoughts which comforted him when she refused to speak, always in terror that people would find out how at hap-hazard they lived, how poor and ill-provided they were, and laugh at her choice--Callista had her own ideas of discipline. If Lance went away and left no firewood cut, she considered it proper to retort by getting no supper and letting him come into a house stone cold. This was a serious matter where a chunk of fire may be sent from neighbor to neighbor to take the place of matches. In this sort the winter wore away. In April there came one of the spring storms that southern mountaineers call "blackberry winter." All the little growing things were checked or killed. A fine, cold rain beat throughout the day around [195] the eaves of the cabin. The wind laid wet, sobbing lips to chink and cranny, and cried to her that she was alone--alone--alone; she, Callista, was neglected, deserted, shunned! For Lance had a day's work at re-lining fireplaces at Squire Ashe's place. Busy with the truck-patch he had at this late day set about, and which he must both clear and fence, he had somewhat overlooked the wood-pile; and before noon the fuel was exhausted. Instead of gathering chips and trash, or raiding the dry spaces under the great pines for cones and crackling twigs,--as any one of her hardy mountain sisters would have done, and then greeted her man at night with a laugh, and a hot supper--Callista let the fire go out, and sat brooding. Without fire she could cook herself no dinner, and she ate a bit of cold corn-pone, fancying Lance at somebody's table--he never told her now where he was going, nor for how long--eating the warm, appetizing food that would be provided. As evening drew on the rain slacked, and a cloud drove down on the mountain-top, forcing an icy, penetrating chill through the very substance of the walls, sending Callista to bed to get warm. She wrapped herself in quilts and shivered. It was dark when she heard Lance come stumbling in, cross the room, and, without a word, search on the fire-board for matches. "There ain't any," she told him, not moving [196] to get up. "It wouldn't do you any good if there was--there's no wood." He did not answer, but, feeling his way, passed on into the little lean-to kitchen, and Callista harkened eagerly, believing that sight of the bowl of meal and the pan of uncooked turnips on the table by the window would bring home to her husband the enormity of her wrongs and his offences. Leaning forward she could discern a vaguely illuminated silhouette of him against this window. He appeared to be eating. She guessed that he had peeled a turnip and was making a lunch of that.