She urged that she and Teen and Cuff should drive in and clean the house, air it out, get the new water pipes put in and—while they were at it, why not install gas? It was dangerous but so convenient! All you did was turn a key and set a match and there you were! And what about one of the new hot air furnaces to replace the odious stoves and fireplaces? She laid plans for such fairy improvements with a spendthrift enthusiasm and proposed that her husband should stay comfortably at home in the country with the two older children while she made the house ready. She was passionately domestic for the first time and when she offered as a final inducement to take her father and mother to town with her, RoBards could not deny her the toil or himself the repose. He wanted a few days of communion with the ideal he was resigning. He wanted to compose his soul anew for the new city life, the country good-by. The children, Immy and Keith, made a great to-do about their mother’s knees, clinging to her and begging her not to go. And the babe-in-arms, the miniature David, howled in trio, vaguely understanding that something ominous was afoot. Patty was the center of the battle. She held the infant under one arm while with her free hand she tried to clasp both Immy and Keith. Her voice was soft among the clamors, and she promised them everything if they would only be good for a few days while she made the home ready in the great city. She looked up at her husband and he could see the weird pride in her eyes. She, the frail, the pretty, the soulful, had been as an apple-branch that bore these buds to flower and fruit from within herself somehow. And they hated to let go, as perhaps the apple is reluctant to be tossed into space by the wind that rends the twig. RoBards had noted this cohesion in trees that were hard to fell and split. Some woods would almost welcome the teeth of the saw and the keen edge of the ax; they divided at a tap. But other trees fought the blade, twisted it and flung it off and made a strange noise of distress. And when the ax fell upon them they turned it aside, caught it in withes of fiber and tore it from the helve. Families were like that: some broke apart at the first shock; others clung together as if they were all interlaced, soul and sinew. He hoped that his household would be of this infrangibility. Patty diverted the children from their grief by loading them with tasks and warnings; the first was to take good care of Papa; the rest were to take care of themselves amid the infinite risks that make a jungle about children. She murmured to her husband: “Watch out for those Lasher children. That boy Jud has grown to a big hulking brute. He hangs about the place—wants to steal something. I suppose. Drive him off if you see him. And don’t let the children play with the Lashers. They come by in the road, and they’re—not nice at all.”