On the white pages of the snow wild things had writ
here and there the fine-traced tale of their morning's adventuring. We
saw once where a fox had pinned a big snowshoe rabbit in a drift.
Hazen talked much of that child of his on the homeward way. I said
little. From the top of the Rayborn Hill we sighted his house and he
laid the whip along the mare and we went down that last long descent at
a speed that left me breathless. I shut my eyes and huddled low in the
robes for protection against the bitter wind, and I did not open them
again till we turned into Hazen's barnyard, ploughing through the
unpacked snow.
When we stopped Hazen laughed.
"Ha!" he said. "Now, come in, man, and warm yourself and see the baby! A
fine boy!"
He was ahead of me at the door; I went in upon his heels. We came into
the kitchen together.
Hazen's kitchen was also living-room and bedroom in the cold of winter.
The arrangement saved firewood. There was a bed against the wall
opposite the door. As we came in a woman got up stiffly from this bed
and I saw that this woman was Hazen's wife. But there was a change in
her. She was bleak as cold iron and she was somehow strong.
Hazen rasped at this woman impatiently: "Well, I'm home! Where is the
boy?"
She looked at him and her lips moved soundlessly. She closed them,
opened them again. This time she was able to speak.
"The boy?" she said to Hazen. "The boy is dead!"
The dim-lit kitchen was very quiet for a little time.
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