"Didn't I tell you?" mourned Mrs. Norris. "Sam's that stubborn and
contrary. It's no use, Billy; he just doesn't care for his poor old
father nor mother any more."

"By the jumping Jiminy Christmas! I'll _make_ him care!" thundered
old Billy. "I'm a-goin' ter see that grandchild of mine." Then
followed a long silence.

"I say, Marthy, how are they fixed in the house?" he questioned,
after many moments of apparently brown study.

"Pretty poor," answered Sam's mother, truthfully this time.

"Got a decent stove, an' bed, an' the like?" he finally asked.

"Stove seems to cook all right, but the bed looks just like straw
tick--not much good, I'd say," responded Mrs. Norris, drearily.

"A straw tick!" fairly yelled old Billy. "A straw tick fer my
grandson ter sleep on? Jim, you fetch that there cow here, right
ter the side door."

"What are you going to do?" asked Martha, anxiously.

"I'll show yer!" blurted old Billy. And going to his own room, he
dragged off all the pretty patchwork quilts above his neatly-made
bed, grabbed up the voluminous feather-bed, staggered with it in
his arms down the hall, through the side door, and flung it on to
the back of the astonished cow.