In earliest April, the little red house sheltered the grand adventure, the greatest adventure, for death seems safe and easy by the side of the great adventure of being born. I had a whole family quartered here, father, mother, and two small winsome children, boy and girl; we tucked them away where we could. And a wee man-child came into the world during their stay here, with much pomp and circumstance and attendance of mine hostess from the Inn, and of the village doctor, whose lot in life has evidently been to stand helpless and aghast, watching mortals who will venture into a world which seems to be no safe place for them. If it had rested with him, small Jean would have had no chance at all; but Madge and mine hostess came to the rescue, and all went well, on to that first little weird lonely cry. It was little bigger than the Atom. It slept, during all its first days, a troubled, puckered sleep. Don worshipped it, and whenever it cried, gave an anxious whine or a sharp short bark. In the Atom's loft I unearthed a prehistoric cradle that may have been left by the Danes or the Saxons. Of course I know that rocking is most unhygienic, but I thought that if this little, frightened fugitive mother found any comfort in rocking her baby by the fireside, rock it she should. It isn't, I believe, supposed to injure anything except the brain, and the brain counts for so little nowadays in the contemporary ideal of development that I am sure small Jean will have enough left to play his part in the civilization of the future. He had, I noticed, square and sturdy little fists, and he may be some day one of the many who will fight for England, when England's guests defend the door so generously opened to shelter them. The Atom insisted upon sharing the cradle; why not? It had discovered the cradle in the first place and had a certain right to it. So it curled up in a corner, and Jean gurgled and grew fat and rosy in its companionship. It was a joy to have a real baby in the house while the birds were building, and the spring flowers budding, and the young ferns uncurling in the forest. The father of the family was a farmer whose house and barns had been wiped out of existence within ten minutes one cruel winter day. Mine host has found a place for him; another man is needed on one of the farms belonging to the estate; a small house there was vacant, and thither they have moved, bag and baggage, baby and baby's cradle. They wanted the Atom, but the Atom and I have lived through such hard days together, cheek to cheek, that I could not let it go. The new house is not far, quite within Puck distance, and Don and I make frequent calls.