The Able McLaughlins
gushed out even in stark times. There was no detail of his nonsense not precious to the two who listened. It was late before they left him, and he soon slept. Towards morning, his mother slept.
Soon after daylight the stranger came into the kitchen. The mother was standing half hidden by the steam that rose from the milk pails that she was scalding out. The oldest sister at a table where candlelight and dawn struggled together, was packing a school lunch into a basket. A small girl was buttoning fat Sarah into her dress. Two small boys were struggling with their shoes on the floor. Wully presently hobbled in from out of doors, declaring himself recovered, a giant refreshed. The stranger noticed that when they found their places at the table, there was a larger child beside each smaller one, to look after him. There was one little fellow who looked like the soldier, and a half-grown sister with beautiful regular features like his. But the others were all alike, with deeply set dark blue eyes, long upper lips, and lower faces heavy, keen, determined. He could have appreciated what the mother said sometimes simply, to the neighbors, when they remarked how good her children were: "Yes, they're never any care when they're well. If we had one or two, we might let them have tantrums. But who could live in a house with thirteen ill bairns?" Since by that she meant, of course, naughty children, her question seemed indeed unanswerable.
Now they sat eating lustily their cornmeal, and
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