As he passed the potato patch, he heard Abner singing, without much
tune to his voice, a song he had learned in the army. "Ay," muttered
Mr. Barly, "go on--sing. You've learned that much, anyway. I may as
well sing, myself, for all the good I've ever had attending to my
business. I'll sing a good one; then I'll be right along with
everybody, and let come what may."

Anna, too, heard Abner singing, as she knelt in front of the basket
where the mother cat lay with her four blind kittens. "You see,
Tabby," she said, "people still sing. A lot of them learned to sing in
the war, and now they're home, they may as well sing as cry. Oh,
Tabby, I wanted to sing, too . . . now look at me.

"I went out so grand," she said. "I was going to find all sorts of
things. But what did I find?"

At that moment, John Henry entered the barn, smoking his corncob pipe.
When the smell of smoke reached Anna, she grew weak and ill, and
stumbling back to the house, went upstairs to rest. But even to climb
the stairs made her catch her breath. Now, before breakfast of a
morning, she was deathly sick; afterwards she was tired, and ready to
cry over anything. Poor Anna; she was dumb with shame. "I'm worse
than Mrs. Wicket," she said to herself, over and over again. "I'm
worse than Mrs. Wicket. My life is ruined. I'd be better dead."

And what of honest Thomas? He was pale with fright. It seemed to him
as if the devil had reached up, and caught him by the leg. He was in
for it. But like a fly in a web, he could not believe that it was not
some other fly. "Oh, God," he prayed, "look down . . . say something