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Updated: May 8, 2025
If the cows failed in their milk, or the fat cattle were not up to the mark, the father felt the reproach as his; to Billy Jack fell the care and handling of the horses; Thomas took charge of the pigs, and the getting of wood and water for the house; little Jessac had her daily task of "sorting the rooms," and when the days were too stormy or the snow too deep for school, she had in addition her stent of knitting or of winding the yarn for the weaver.
I've cut them often enough," replied Hughie, scornfully. "Well, look at that one, now," said Jessac, picking up a seed that Hughie had let fall; "that's only got one eye." "There's two," said Hughie, triumphantly. "That's not an eye," said Jessac, pointing to a mark on the potato; "that's where the top grew out of, isn't it, mother?" "It is, isn't it?" appealed Hughie. Mrs.
"Oh, then, they will not be requiring you and Thomas, I am thinking, to carry him out." At which Hughie and Billy Jack and Jessac laughed aloud, but Thomas and his father only looked stolidly into the fire. "Come, Thomas," said his mother, "take your fiddle a bit. Hughie will like a tune." There was no need of any further discussing the new master.
Was this Thomas the stolid, the clumsy, the heavy-handed, this big fellow with the quick tongue and the clever, gentle hand? Meantime Jessac had set upon the table a large pitcher of rich milk, with oat cakes and butter, and honey in the comb. "Now, Hughie, lad, draw in and help yourself. You and Thomas will be too hungry to wait for supper," said the mother.
And Jessac put up her lip with the true girl's grimace and went away for her knitting, to Hughie's disappointment and relief. Soon Billy Jack took down the tin lantern, pierced with holes into curious patterns, through which the candle-light rayed forth, and went out to bed the horses.
Finch took the seed and looked at it. "Well, there's one very good eye, and that will do." "But isn't that the mark of the top, mother?" insisted Jessac. But the mother only shook her head at her. "That's right, Jessac," said Thomas, driving off with his team; "you look after Hughie, and mother will look after you both till I get back, and there'll be a grand crop this year."
In grim silence he ate his breakfast, except for a sharp rebuke to Billy Jack, who had been laboring throughout the meal to make cheerful conversation with Jessac and his mother. At his father's rebuke Billy Jack dropped his cheerful tone, and avoiding his mother's eyes, he assumed at once an attitude of open defiance, his tones and words plainly offering to his father war, if war he would have.
"The old man was there at one side, with his gray head down on the bed, his little girl kneeling beside him with her arm round his neck, opposite him the minister's wife, her face calm and steady, Billy Jack standing at the foot of the bed he and little Jessac the only ones in the room who were weeping and there at the head, Thomas, supporting his mother, now and then moistening her lips and giving her sips of stimulant, and so quick and steady, gentle as a woman, and smiling through it all.
His heart was heavy within him, for he saw, not the gleaming ice and the crowding players, but "the room" at home, and his mother, with her pale, patient face, sitting in her chair. His father, he knew, would be beside her, and Jessac would be flitting about.
Jessac, the little dark-faced maiden of nine years, whose face was the very replica of her mother's, knew nothing in the world dearer, albeit in her daily little housewifely tasks she felt the gentle pressure of that steadfast mind and unyielding purpose.
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