Chapter XI.
A Splendid Year for Corn.
WE had just finished supper. Supper! dry bread and sugarless tea. Dad was tired out and was resting at one end of the sofa; Joe was stretched at the other, without a pillow, and his legs tangled up among Dad's. Bill and Tom squatted in the ashes, while Mother tried to put the fat-lamp into burning order by poking it with a table fork.
Dad was silent; he seemed sad, and lay for some time gazing at the roof. He might have been watching the blaze of the glorious moon or counting the stars through the gaps in the shingles, but he was n't—there was no such sentiment in Dad. He was thinking how his long years of toil and worry had been rewarded again and again by disappointment—wondering if ever there would be a turn in his luck, and how he was going to get enough out of the land that season to pay interest and keep Mother and us in bread and meat.
At last he spoke, or rather muttered disjointedly, "Plen-ty—to eat—in the safe." Then suddenly, in a strange and hollow voice, he shouted, "They're dead—all of them! I starved them!"
