Shad's special pride, owing to the difficulty of maintaining a balance if the cow began to shift. Shad heard two streams hitting the pail at a clip that beat his own, and went on, with backward looks, and hopeful. He had much simple faith in the stool.
Brassfield didn't have to go very far afield after the horses; he was back shortly after Dunham had finished the milking, peering into the pail to see if his substitute had drained as much out of the unprolific cows as his own refined efforts produced. He seemed to be satisfied, and said he reckoned breakfast was ready and they'd better go. They could strain the milk or leave it stand till the cream rose, for all he give a damn.
Brassfield and his wife inhabited one end of the long bunk house, where Dunham was introduced to the lady and breakfast at the same time. Mrs. Brassfield was moving about with a sort of philosophic deliberation, smoking a little gray clay pipe with cane stem. She was tall, flat and flaccid, brown as the tobacco which she smoked out of the "hand," a loquacious, friendly soul, unfeigned in her hospitality.
She appeared to be about fifty, but probably was not more than thirty-eight, the business of wife to Shad Brassfield being a wearing one, full of hardships and privations, as Dunham was soon to hear. She put her pipe away on a little shelf behind the stove, exclaiming and wondering over Dunham as if her husband had brought a rare curiosity to the house. But there was such sincerity in her manner, and unfeigned welcome, that Dunham felt more at ease than he had since wak-
