From loosened bark Dannie watched the bird take several good-sized white worms and a few dormant ants.

As it flew away he gathered an armload of wood.

He was very careful to clean his feet on the stoop, place the wood without tearing the neat covering of wall paper, and brush from his coat the snow and moss so that it fell in the box.

He had heard Mary tell the careless Jimmy to do all these things, and Dannie knew that they saved her work.

There was a whiteness on her face that morning that startled him, and long after the last particle of moss was cleaned from his sleeve he bent over the box trying to get something said.