IT was quite dark when Pole went into the cottage. There was a fire in the little sitting-room, and by its light he could see his wife through the open door of the next room as she quietly moved about. He paused in the door-way and whispered:

“Are the childern asleep, Sally?”

“Yes, an' tucked away.” She came to him with a cautious step, and looked up into his face trustingly. “Little Billy kept askin' fer papa, papa, papa! He said he jest wasn't goin' to sleep anywhar except in his own place in yore lap.”

Pole went to the children's bed, looked down at the row of yellow heads for a moment, then suddenly bent and took the eldest boy into his arms.

“You goose!” Mrs. Baker exclaimed. “I'm sorry I said what I did. You'll spile 'im to death. Thar, I knowed he'd wake up! It's jest what you wanted.”

“Did you want yore papa?” Pole said, in cooing tones of endearment. “Well, Billy-boy, papa's got you, an' he ain't a-goin' to let no booger git you, nuther. Thar now, go back to sleep.” And in a big arm-chair before the fire Pole sat and rocked back and forth with the child's head on his shoulder.

“Whar've you been, papa?” Billy asked, sliding his arm around Pole's rough, sunbrowned neck and pressing his face to his father's.

“To feed the hogs, Billy-boy.”

“But you never took so long before,” argued the child.

“I had to watch 'em eat, Billy-boy—eat, eat, eat, Billy-boy! They hadn't had anything since mom-in' except roots, an' snags, an' pusley weeds, an' it was a purty sight to watch 'em stick the'r snouts in that slop. Now, go to sleep. Here we go—here we go—across the bridge to Drowsy Town.”

In a moment the child was sleeping soundly and Pole bore him tenderly back to bed. As he straightened up in the darkened room his wife was beside him.

“I declare you are a good man,” she said—“the best-hearted, tenderest man in the world, Pole Baker!”

He looked at her steadily for an instant, then he said:

“Sally, I want you to do me a special favor.”

“What is it, Pole?” Her voice was full of wonder.

“Sally, now don't laugh at me, but I want you to go put on a piece o' red ribbon, an' let yore hair hang down yore back loose like you used to. Fix it that away an' then come in to the fire.”

“Pole, yo're foolish!” Mrs. Baker was really pleased, and yet she saw no reason for his whim.

“You do as I ax you, an' don't be long about it, nuther.”

He turned back into the firelight, and, watching him cautiously from the adjoining room, Mrs.

Baker saw him straightening out his shirt and brushing his coarse hair. Then, to her further surprise, she saw him take down his best coat from its peg on the wall and put it on. This was followed by a dusting of his rough shoes with a soiled, red handkerchief. In great wonder, Sally, with her hair loose on her shoulders, looked into the room.

“You ain't in earnest about that—that red ribbon, are you, Pole?” she faltered.

“Yes, I am,” he answered, without lifting his eyes from the fire. “I mean exactly what I say.”

“All right, then, I'll do it, but I don't see a bit o' sense in it,” she retorted. “It's about our bedtime, an' I know in reason that we ain't a-goin' nowhar at this time o' night an' leave the childem by the'r-selves.”

Still Pole did not look up.

“You go an' do as I tell you,” he repeated, a flush of growing embarrassment on his face.

Presently Mrs. Baker came in, even redder and more confused than he.

“Pole, what in the name o' common-sense—”

But he was gallantly placing a chair for her in front of the fire near his own. “Take a seat,” he said, bowing and motioning downward with his hands. “When you stood in the door jest then, lookin' fer all the world like you did away back in our courtin'-day, I come as nigh as peas callin' you 'Miss Sally.' Gee whiz! It's Mrs. Baker now—ain't it? How quar that sounds when a body looks back!”

“Pole,” she asked, as she sat down wonderingly, “are you goin' some'rs at this time o' night?”

“No, it ain't that,” he said, awkwardly—“it ain't that, Sally. It ain't meetin', nor singin'-school, nor a moonlight buggy-ride.'Tain't none o' them old, old things.” Pole crossed his long legs and leaned back in his chair. “I know in reason that you are a-goin' to laugh at me, an' say I'm plumb crazy, but it's this away, Sally: some'n's jest happened that's set me to thinkin', an' it occurred to me that I wasn't half thankful enough to the Almighty fer all His many blessin's, an'—”

“Pole”—Mrs. Baker was misled as to his meaning—“somebody's been talkin' religion to you. You want to begin holdin' family prayer ag'in, I reckon. Now, looky' here, ef you do, I want you to keep it up. I feel wuss ever'time you start in an' break off.”

“'Tain't that, nuther,” Pole said, eying the red chunks under the fire-logs. “Sally, thar ortn't to be no secret betwixt man an' wife. I had a talk with Cynthia Porter out at the hog-pen jest now about Nelson Floyd, an' the way she talked an' acted worked on me powerful. Seein' the way she feels about her sweetheart started me to thinkin' how awful I'd feel without you. An' with that come the feelin' that, somehow—somehow or other, Sally—me'n' you ain't jest pine-blank the way we used to be, an' I believe thar's a screw loose. I'd liter'ly die ef I didn't have you, an' I've been spittin' in the face o' Providence by the careless way I've been actin'. Now, Sally, I want you jest to set right thar, an' let's forget about them towheads in the next room, an' try an' forget all I've made you suffer fust an' last, an' let's git back—let's git back, Sally, to the old sweetheart-time. I know I'm tough, an' a sorry cuss before God an' man, but I've got the same heart a-beatin' in me to-night that was in me away back on Holly Creek. In this firelight you look as plump an' rosy an' bright-eyed as you did then, an' with that red ribbon at yore neck, an' yore hair down yore back, I feel—well, I feel like gittin' down on my knees an' beggin' you, like I did that time, not to take Jim Felton, but to give me a showin'. I wonder”—Pole's voice broke, and he covered his mouth impulsively with his hand—“I wonder ef it's too late to ax you to give me a chance to prove myself a good husband an' a father to them thar childern.”

“Oh, Pole, stop!” Mrs. Baker cried out, as if in pain. “I won't let you set thar an' run yorese'f down, when you are the best-hearted man in this state. What is a little spree now an' then compared to the lot o' some pore women that git kicked an' cuffed, with never a tender word from the'r husbands. Pole, as the Lord is my judge, I kin honestly say that I—I almost want you jest like you are. Some men don't drink, but they hain't got yore heart an' gentle way, an' ef I had to take my choice over an' over ag'in, I'd choose a man like you every time.”

She rose suddenly, and with a face full of pent-up emotion she left the room. She returned in a moment.

“I thought I heard the baby wakin',” she said.

He caught her hand and pulled her gently down into her chair. “Yo're a liar, Sally,” he said, huskily. “You know yo're a-lyin'. You went out to wipe yore eyes. You didn't want me to see you cry.”

She made no denial, and he put his rough hand, with a reverent touch, on her hair.

“It ain't quite as heavy as it was,” he said. “Nor so fluffy. I reckon that's beca'se you keep it bound up so tight. When I fust tuck a shine to you, you used to run about them old hills as wild as a deer, an' the wind kept it tousled. Do you remember the day it got full o' cockleburs an' I tried to git 'em out? La me! I was all of a tremble. The Lord knows I never thought then that sech a sweet, scared, rosy little thing ud ever keep house fer me an' cook my grub an' be a mother to my childern. I never dreamt, then, that instead o' bein' grateful fer the blessin', I'd go off weeks at a time an' lie in a gutter, leavin' you to walk the floor in agony—sometimes with a nursin' baby an' not a scrap to eat. No, I never—”

“Hush, Pole!” With a sob, half of joy, half of sadness, Mrs. Baker put her hand over his mouth and pressed her face against his. “Hush, hush, hush!”

“But, thank God, I hope that day is over,” he said, taking her hand from his lips. “I've passed through a great crisis, Sally. Some'n' you don't know about—some'n' you may never know about—that happened right here in these mountains, but it may prove to be my turnin'-p'int.”

His wife looked uneasily at the fire. “It's gittin' late, Pole,” she said. “We'd better go to bed.”